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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.; 




SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 

First White Man on a New England Shore (Chronology: Drake, 1586; Pilgrims, 1620; 
John Eliot, the Apostle, 1631). 



LESSONS 



OF 



LAW AN D LIFE, 



FROM 



|f0k §\kt> tfoe %p#tk 



TO THE 



1/ 

By ROBERT BOODEY CAVERLY, 

V 

of the massachusetts, u. s^bar, 

Author of "Epics, Lyrics, and Ballads;" "Dust ox and the 
Indian Wars of New England;" "Legends (Historic, 
Dramatic, and Comic);" "Battle of the Bush," 
and of other works. 



BOSTON, MASS. : 
MOSES H. SARGENT & SONS. 
1880. 



Els 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 
Robert Boodey Caverly, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Vox Populi Press : 
Huse, Goodwin <5r* Ca. t 
Lowell, Mass. 



tilt 

Revebend Clebgy of New England, 

AND TO THE 

®mber atttr gibbanccb JJtwbntt in % Habbatlj JStljool or Cljurclj, 

THESE 

Lessons of Law and Life, Historic, 

ARE INSCRIBED. 

Faithfully, Thine, 

ROBT. B. CAVERLY. 

Centralville, Feb. 22, 1880.. 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Home in Centralville Frontispiece 

Sir Francis Drake, first White Man on a New Eng- 
land Shore ( Chronology : Drake, 1586 ; Pilgrims, 

1620; John Eliot, the Apostle, 1631) 24 

Death of King Philip . . . 70 

Prisoners of War on the way to Deer Island ... 78 

Chocorua at the Grave of Keoka 95 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



The ancestor (remote) , Sir William De Aliot 7 

Landing of the ancestor with William the Conqueror 7, 8 

Eliot descendants, Lord Heathfield, and others 8 

Sir John Eliot in Parliament 9 

Sir John Eliot in Court 10 

Sir John Eliot in the Tower— his^death there 10, 11 

Boyhood of our Apostle — at school , 11 

The Apostle and his "brothers Philip and Jacob, Puritans in England, 11 

Their trip to the Tower to visit Uncle John, the martyr 11 

England's jewels, crowns, sceptres, etc 13 

Description of the Tower— a bird's-eye view 12 

Up the stairway — tools of torture, etc 13 

Inscriptions, offences, and cruelties , 13, 15 

Statuary and weapons or war 14 

Royalty in the climax of its conflicts and troubles 17 

The Apostle and his brothers at the dungeon of Sir John 19 

What the brothers saw and heard in the Tower 20 

What the brothers saw and heard, leaving the Tower 21 

The brothers returning to the ship " Lyon " 22 

The Apostle and his brothers— voyage to the New World 22, 24 

Lessons from the great and good 25 

The Apostle in New England, Ins force of character —life and death. . 25, 26 

England's intolerance— Eliot's mission and position 27, 28 

Indian nations in New England 28, 29 

Eliot's apparel— his prospective field 30 

Location of the tribes 30, 31 

Eliot's fidelity —his purpose — unwavering 32 



6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Troubles in England — its conflicts 34 

Oliver Cromwell kept there— a protector 35 

Eliot's republican book — suppressed 35 

The regicide judges— three escape to Boston 36 

Eliot and King Charles II — republican government 37 

Eliot's order— rulers — law— teachers — the civil power, etc 38-41 

Eliot's disciples — he takes courage 42 

His first Indian sermon at Nonantum 43, 44 

Praying Indians, number of —infidelity — sunshine and cloud. ....... 45, 46 

Philip's war — anticipated— Eliot fearful— a similitude. 46, 47 

Murder of Sassamon— foreshadows war 48, 39 

Trial of the Indian murderers 49, 50 

Chapter III— a recapitulation 50, 51 

EliOt's letters to King Charles II 51-55 

His progress — care for schools— his rulers and ministers 55, 56 

Convention of Sagamores at Natick— churches, covenants, etc 57, 58 

Eliot's resistance to a proposed war against the Missaconogs 59-61 

Indian stations — Eliot at Pawtucket Falls— Passaconaway 61, 62 

Up to 1674— Eliot's progress— war 65 

The dread alternative 67 

James the Printer, and Mrs. Rowlandson 67, 68 

Job Nesutan, and Old Jethro 69 

King Philip slain— the sham fight 70 

Eliot opposes slavery 72 

Eliot again at Wamesit — his sermon— Wonolancet 63, 64, 75 

Desperadoes trouble Eliot— cruel death of squaw sachem 73 

Extermination of races avowed on either side 75 

Conflagration and battle at Wamesit 75 

Philip's forces as against the settlers— the flames how fed 75-78 

Eliot escorted to Nashua— his friends— testimonials 79, 80 

Anna Mountfort Eliot — her life, her force, faith, and death 81-84 

Eliot in old age — his charity, manners, and his departure 84-86 

Decline among the Indian churches after his decease 88 

Carnal conflicts diminished, but long continued 89 

Captivity of Jane McCrea (poetized) 89-91 

Death of Chocorua, and his curse (poetized) 91-98 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND 



Introductory. 

Before advancing to obtain Lessons from John Eliot, the 
Apostle, we turn to his ancestry. There is no test, in bringing 
to light the merits of a man, better or more conclusive than to 
exemplify the blood that moves him. True it shall be found, 
that the life-current which fed the Evangelist had flowed auspi- 
ciously in England through many a successive channel for more 
than seven hundred years, leaping forth and meandering in all 
its life-inspiring elements, and from the pure original fountains 
of good-will, social gladness, and progressive manhood. 

Sir William. 

"When William the Conqueror, in the year 106G, with his army, 
in seven hundred ships, then landing on the shores of England, 
at Pevency, he had on board an Eliot, — not an apostle, but the 
remote ancestor of our New England evangelist. It was no 
other than Sir William De AUot, a military officer under the 
great Conqueror, then valiant, and then in hfgh command. 

History bears record that the landing of that vast army was 
made without resistance ; that the archers landed first, that they 
wore short habits, and had their hair cut close ; that the horse- 
men next followed, wearing steel head-pieces, tunics, and 
cuirasses, and with long, heavy spears, and straight, two-eclged 
swords ; and then, to the shore, next came the workmen of the 
army, pioneers, carpenters, and smiths, who unloaded on the 
strand, piece by piece, prepared beforehand, three wooden 
castles already framed. 



8 



ELIOTS IN" ENGLAND, 



The Conqueror being the last of all to touch the English 
shore, in the setting of his foot upon it, made a false step, and 
fell in the mud upon his face ; at which there went up a mur- 
muring cry, "God preserve us! God preserve us! This is a 
bad sign ! " But the duke, rising to his feet (with hands full 
of mud), cried out, "See, seigniors! I have seized England 
with both hands ! See, seigniors ! All is our own ! " 

Then one of the men, running forward, and snatching a hand- 
ful of thatch from the eaves of a hut, turned to the duke and 
exclaimed to him, " Sire, come forward, and receive seizen of 
this land ! I give you seizen ! This land is yours ! " The duke 
answered aloud, " I accept it! I accept it! May God be with 
us ! " 

Thus landed the first Eliot, eight hundred years ago, on 
England's shores, — a valiant officer, in the midst of an army of 
conquerors. According to history, Sir William, our Eliot's 
remote ancestor, then and . there addressing the duke, and 
swearing fidelity, declared that "at the hazard of his life, he 
would maintain the rights of his lord, the Conqueror, to the 
vast sovereignty of England." 

For this avowed fidelity, the Conqueror at once added to the 
Eliot coat-of-arms a canton (on a field of azure), an arm and 
sword as a crest, with the motto, "Per saxa, per ignes ; fortiter 
et recte " — " Over rocks, through fires ; bravely and honorably." 

Ever since the Norman conquest, England's places of honor 
and trust have constantly called them out. Especially since the 
reign of James the First (1625) the Eliot name stands on the 
record highly honored. Independent of royal appointments, 
generalships, and other high places, no less than thirty Eliots, 
both from England and Scotland, represent the realm as mem- 
bers of Parliament. 

Descendants. 

From that noble knighthood have descended Maj.-Gen. George 
Augustus Eliot, honored as Lord Heathfield ; Sir Gilbert Eliot, 
the Earl of Minto ; and most, if not all, the many thousands of 
distinguished Eliots who have since lived in England, including 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



9 



those who, within the last two hundred and fifty years, have 
landed and lived on these our New England shores. 

And proud may the race be, that the same heroic blood that 
moved one of the old conquerors, is fruitful of inspiration in 
the veins of the generous Eliots in this our day. For more than 
fourscore years, it came, — coursed and moved the Apostle, in- 
spiring life and light and love divine, on his mission to the 
heathen tribes of the wilderness-. 

Aside from the Eliot ancestry in England, now unrememberecl, 
unknown, in spite of oblivion, which in stealth creeps in, over- 
whelming the generations of earth, the Eliot name everywhere 
still adorns the English annals. 

Sir John Eliot. 

This noble knight, born in 1590, was a member of Parliament 
from Newport, and afterwards representing Cornwall, — was a 
leader in the House in the latter part of the reign of James II 
and the first part of Charles L Repeatedly he had made himself 
prominent in opposition to the king's assumed prerogative ; and 
finally, among other things, he strenuously led off in opposition 
to the levying of tonnage and poundage by the king himself, 
without consent of the House of Commons.* 

Being an active man, and a decided enemy to favorites and 
their encroachments, Sir John was appointed by the House a 
manager in the impeachment trial of the Duke of Buckingham. 
By reason of his action in this, he, with his associate Digges 
and others, was committed to the Tower by the king, but was 
soon afterwards released. 

In 1628 he was again imprisoned, with others, for his alleged 
parliamentary misconduct, and for his refusing to answer for it 
before the Privy Council ; and yet he was again released. 

Again the king having persisted in the aggressions above 
named, and Sir John, in concert with other members, having 



* Among the many great men associated with Sir John Eliot, were Sir 
Edward Coke, Sir Edwin Sandis, Sir Robert Philips, Sir Francis Seymour, 
Sir Dudley Digges, and Sir Thomas Wentworth, the noble Earl of Strafford. 
— Hume's Hist., Vol, V, pp. 33, 34, 59, 60. 

2 



10 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



at length framed a remonstrance against the levying of tonnage 
and poundage by the king without consent of the House, pre- 
sented it to the clerk to be read ; but the clerk refused. There- 
upon Sir John arose, and read it to the House himself. 

The question being called for, the speaker objecting, said he 
had a command from the king not to put any question, but to 
adjourn the House ; and, rising up, leaving the chair, an uproar 
ensued. 

The speaker was pushed back into his chair, and was forcibly 
held into it by Hollis and Valentine, until a short remonstrance 
in writing was framed by Sir John, which, without vote, was 
passed by acclamation. In this, Papists and Arminians were 
declared by the House capital enemies to the commonwealth, as 
well as those who had been concerned in levying tonnage and 
poundage. The doors at this time being locked, the usher of 
the House of Lords, sent by the king, could not obtain admit- 
tance, until that remonstrance on the motion of Sir John Eliot 
had been carried through.* 

Position of the King. 

These proceedings of the House were denounced by the 
throne as seditious, and on this account several members of 
the House were imprisoned, but were afterwards, with much 
difficulty, released. 

Sir John in Court. 

This member, with Hollis, Valentine, and others, was (May 29, 
1628) summoned to his trial before the King's Bench for " sedi- 
tious speeches and behaviour." Sir John was charged of having 
declared, in the House, that "the council and judges conspired 
to trample under their feet the liberties of the subject and the 
privileges of Parliament" : and being arraigned before a tribunal 
inferior to his own, as asserted, he refused to answer. There- 
upon the King's Bench condemned him to be imprisoned in the 
Tower at the king's pleasure, and to pay a fine of £2,000. His 
parliamentary associates received less, but similar, sentences. 



* Hume, Vol. V, p. 59. 



ELIOTS IN" ENGLAND. 



11 



The king, in the midst of embarrassment, offered them a re- 
lease on the terms of concession, to which they would not yield, 
nor would they accept of bail generously offered ; but for the 
cause of liberty they cared not for the bonds that held them. 
Under this imprisonment Sir John Eliot died in the Tower Nov. 
27, 1632. This was announced throughout the realm as the 
death of a martyr, and it was not very long afterwards (1648) 
when his royal oppressor also died, beheaded.* 

The Apostle in England. 

The first now known of our John, the Apostle, is, when he was 
at school with Rev. Thomas Hooper, at Little Baddow, in 
Essex,f as an usher, or assistant teacher; and tradition has it, 
that he was also schooled for some time in the University at 
Cambridge, but of this last statement there is some doubt. J 

The Apostle, as well as his brothers Philip and Jacob, was 
once supposed to have originated at Nasing, in Essex ; but a 
special historian has journeyed to that town, and upon diligent^ 
search, finds no evidence of it. Nor does it in any way appear 
that the Apostle ever saw that town. 

In 1631, the year previous to Sir John Eliot's death in the 
Tower, the Apostle and his two brothers, disgusted at the then 
oppressive papacy, and at the royal misrule as affecting them- 
selves and kindred ties, had made up their minds to desert Eng- 
land^ 

About to Embark. 

Being^ about to leave the realm, these Eliot brothers must 
needs advance to take final leave of favored friends. So doing, 



* Hume's History of England, Vol. V, pp. 59, 60, 371. 

f Hooker was suspended from the ministry by reason of his hostility to 
papacy and royalty as then administered; and years afterwards, in 1640, 
left England in the ship ' ' Griffin," with two hundred others (among whom 
Oliver Cromwell started, but turned back) , and finally settled in Connecticut, 
and was honored as the " Moses " of that State. 

t Eliot Gen., p. 35. 

§ Life of Eliot, by Francis, pp. 6, 7, and note. Hist, of Puritans, Vol. H, 
p. 245. 



12 



ELI0TS IN ENGLAND. 



we seem to see them on the way, hurriedly advancing in and 
along the narrow highways of London to its Tower, on a visit 
to their dear old uncle, Sir John Eliot, the Martyr. They pass 
incognito. Their sympathies concentre at the -Tower. They 
know and feel the injustice of the imprisonment, and the cru- 
elty of that royal power which holds him within its walls. 
Foremost, as they advance, the great white fortification heaves 
in sight, and then next its outstanding twelve towers, and then 
a spacious moat or canal that surrounds it. Here, then, 
a fortress, terrible in its history, and awful in its frowning 
strength and power, now stands before them. - They gaze 
glancing upon its embattled watch-towers, and upon its heavy, 
time-stainecl, stately walls. 

Up the Stairway. 

Permitted by "the warder, or yeoman of the guard," they 
pass the gateway into the outer ward, and farther onward 
^ enter within and along up the heavy stairway from the inner 
ward, and still higher along between the various dismal 
dungeons and solitary apartments of the great white Tower. 

Tools of Torture. 

On their winding way up ward, step, after step, on either side 
are seen, in various forms, the many implements of cruelty and 
death of long-gone years. Here is seen the collar of torment ; 
there the thumb-screw; there the rack an<J the stock that 
destroyed the limbs of men, and the block that held the heads 
of queens. There, too, among thousands of other dread im- 
plements, is the broad, bloody axe which, one after another, 
all the way through England's reign of terror, had left kings 
headless and many a noble heart lifeless. As they move up- 
ward, gazing, wondering, the splendor of royalty and the 
beauty of queens fall oft upon their vision. The dazzling 
insignia of royalty and the glittering power of princes are 
exemplified. Found high up in one of the towers, in all their 
value and beauty, they behold 



ELIOTS IX ENGLAND. 



13 



England's Jewels. 

These diadems are grouped. The crown of the sovereign con- 
sists of a cap of purple velvet, enclosed in hoops of silver, sur- 
mounted by a ball and cross, all brilliant in diamonds. In the 
centre of the cross is the inestimable sapphire; and in front is 
the heart-shaped ruby once worn by the Black Prince. 

St. Edward. — One of the group is the crown of this prince, 
made of gold, richly embellished with emeralds, pearls, and 
other precious gems. 

Prince of Wales. — The crown of -this prince is of pure gold, 
unadorned. It is a crown which usually is placed before the 
seat of the heir-apparent in the House of Lords. 

Ancient Queen's Crown. — This is used at coronations, for the 
queen's consort. 

Queen's Diadem. — This is adorned with large diamonds and 
pearls. 

St. Edward's Staff. — Made of beaten gold; it is four feet 
seven inches in length, and is surmounted with an orb. It is 
carried before the king at the coronation. 

The Boy al Sceptre. — This, with the cross, is usually carried 
before the Archbishop of Canterbury at the coronation. It is 
of gold, adorned with jewels. 

Bod of Equity. — This sceptre is placed in the hand of the 
sovereign at the coronation. Made of gold, it has an orb, and 
a dove with expanded wings. 

Ivory Sceptre. — This was the sceptre of " Queen Marie De 
Estie." 

The Golden Sceptre. — This seems to have originated from 
Queen Mary, of William the Third, and is the last of the group. 

These, to the brothers, were indeed " glittering generalities." 
Inscriptions, Offences, and Cruelties. 

Next they enter various other departments, encased with huge 
walls, upon which now and then are deeply engraved the many 
sentimental sayings, inscribed in plain letters, — some in English, 



14 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



some in Latin, and others in other languages, — by the many 
heroic victims, men and women, who in by-gone ages had 
perished in the Tower. 

On one side, over the fireplace, is found the name " Philip 
Howard." Philip was the son of the Duke of Norfolk, who in 
1572 had been beheaded for the grave offence of having aspired 
to the hand of the clear Mary, Queen of Scots. This was 
the duke's offence. Philip's own crime proves to have been 
an ardent devotedness to the church of his choice, at which 
Queen Elizabeth had -taken offence. Philip, seeiug his danger, 
tried to escape into exile ; but, detected, was seized and sent to 
the Tower, where, upon its walls, over his name (immortalized), 
he engraved the following words : — 

" Quant o plus affectiones pro Christo in hoc secula plus gloried 
cum Christo in futuro. Philip Howard. 

"Arundell, June 22, 1587." 

The interpretation of this declares that, " The more suffering 
with Christ in this world, the more glory shall be obtained 
with Christ in the world to come." 

Philip's Sentence. 

This same earl, being found guilty of high treason, was 
condemned to death, but having been convicted on religious 
grounds, was not beheaded, but, doomed, was held a prisoner for 
life. Worn with sorrow, he expired in the Tower, " 1595, aged 
39." In person he was tall, of a swarthy complexion, but "had 
an agreeable mixture of sweetness and grandeur of countenance, 
with a soul superior to all human considerations." 

Next they come to the inscriptions made by Arthur Poole, on 
the north side of his cell, to wit : " Deo servire penitentiam inire 
fato obedire Begnare est. A. Poole, 1564 I. H. S." 

It seems that Arthur was in the belief that " to live penitently, 
yield to fate, and serve God, is to reign." 

And again, the same prisoner leaves on the walls other words, 
"I. H. S. A passage perilous maketh a port pleasant." "A. 
1568." "Arthur Poole." "A. C. sue 37 A. P." 

In another place in the walls are found, from his brother, the 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



15 



following: " I. H. S. Dio semin . . . in lachrimis exultatione 
mater. A. E. 21 E. Poole 1562." " That which is sown of 
God in tears is to be reaped in joy." 

Under one of the autographs of Edmund Poole is the word 
" lane." This is said to have been the royal title of Lady Jane 
Gray; and as appears, Lady Jane herself, while imprisoned in 
the Tower, left an inscription scratched upon the wall with a 
pin, as follows : — 

" To mortals' common fate thy mind resign, 
My lot to-day, to-morrow may be thine." 

Imprisonment and Death. 

It was in 1640, when Sir Thomas Cromwell, for his Reforma- 
tion sentiments, was cast into the Tower, and afterwards was 
beheaded on Tower Hill. About this time, in the midst of 
heresy and delusion, the dungeons were filled with learned 
divines. 

In 1546, Anne Askew, a lady of merit, for denying in conver- 
sation the doctrine of transubstantiation, was tortured in the 
Tower, and then burnt at the stake in Smithfield. 

The offence of Margaret, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of 
Cardinal Pole, was that she was of royal blood. When brought 
to the scaffold on the green, she refused to lay her head upon 
the block, saying, "So do traitors use to do, and I am no 
traitor." An awful scene followed. At length the headsman 
dragged the countess by her long, frosty locks to the block. 
Thus perished the last full blood of the Plantagenets. 

Sir Walter Raleigh, once an inhabitant of the New World, 
was afterwards seized in England, charged of being concerned 
in the plot of placing on the throne Lady Arabella Stuart. For 
this he was held a prisoner in the Tower twelve years. Re- 
leased, he went to Guiana in search of gold ; but failing in that 
enterprise, on his return, for the original offence, he was again 
remanded to the Tower, and without reason was beheaded in 
1618.* While in the Tower that noble Raleigh wrote a history 
of the world. 



*Hume, Yol. IV, p. 452. 



16 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



Thomas Wentworth, * Earl of Strafford, one of England's 
most eminent sons, was incarcerated in the Tower for trying to 
withstand the popular current, which was concentrating to a 
revolution, and in 1641 was beheaded, to the intense grief of 
his sovereign. 

Statuary and Weapons. 

Present to the brothers, as they advance, are also other unnum- 
bered victims of despotic vengeance in the by-gone centuries. 
They behold, in deep thought, the emblematic banners which 
floated over heroes like Edward I, Edward III, the Black 
Prince, and many others, such as had been fanned by " the 
whirlwinds of war and by the crimson wing of conquest." 
Here, too, on the right and left as they pass, are the cross- 
bows, with their stocks curiously carved, used in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. Here, also, is the carved steed, 
bearing away upon himself, in his pride, Elizabeth, Queen of 
England. Here, too, fronting the queen, is the equestrian 
statue of a noble knight wielding in his hand a tilting lance, 
clad in the closest armor. Also, farther upward, is the figure 
of an archer in a brigandine jacket; and there, too, is a cross- 
bow used in the clays of our remote Eliot and William the 
Conqueror, with groups of spears on all sides of it. Next to 
be noticed are rugged shields, with scenes from the story of 
Hercules; helmets and breast-plates, ancient firearms, match- 
locks, etc., innumerable. Still farther upward are .groups of 
arms and armor, iron skull-caps, and various figures of stat- 
uary; effigies of noble knights on horseback, very common, 
among which appears Charles the First on horseback in the 
same gilt armor which he had received as a gallant gift from 
the city of London. All these, and immensely more, excite the 
senses of our Eliot, brothers on that day in the heart of their 
native England, and in the proudest city of the world. 

Now, half halting, our young Apostle, breaking silence, thus 
addresses Philip and Jacob : — 



* Sketches of the Tower, p. 38. 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



17 



Royal Outrages. 

These, as you see, are but the emblems that have come down 
from a wild, unjust, untutored ambition, whence dread heresies, 
and the thirst for power, have, through carnal weapons, been 
allowed to gain the ascendancy over a Christian civilization as 
found in the laws of God, and which forever must needs be 
enforced, pursuant to "the great God's Golden Rule." Thus in 
this our English fathers have failed. England, beautiful Eng- 
land, whose mountains have been made vocal with the high-born 
Hoel's harp and soft Llewellyn's lay, hath suffered all this. 
Indeed, a better era shall follow her. Then shall her kings 'fad 
queens reign in righteousness; and "then shall her princes 
decree justice." 

Next, now, as the brothers pass, are pointed out to them the 
various dungeons which long previously had been filled with the 
mighty men of Scotland. For here it was that King Baliol was 
imprisoned in 1297; where, also, the noble Wallace suffered 
imprisonment and death in 1305 ; where the gallant earls of 
Ross, of Athol, and of Monteitji, in 1346, King David Bruce's 
time, all perished ; * and where, also, the six hundred Jews must 
have been quartered, who inhabited the Tower, prisoners in the 
reign of Edward the Third, and during the military career of 
"Sir Hugh Calverly, the chevalier verte," who first used guns 
in England's wars.f 

In 1406, in the reign of Henry IV, the boy Prince James, son 
of Robert III, King of Scotland, when on a sea- voyage to 
France to obtain an education, driven by storm and tempest, 
was cast upon the shores of England. Now, for reason that 
Scotland was then at war with King Henry, this -infant prince 
was seized, as if by a wrecker, and was consigned to the Tower 
of London, and was there held imprisoned eighteen years. He 
educated himself there, and in after life, crowned, he at length 
became renowned " for consummate wisdom and virtue." 



* See Harmon's Sketch, pp. 32, 33. 

t These Jews, for this, their offence of having adulterated the coin of the 
realm, with their entire nation, were finally released from the Tower, by- 
being banished from England. See Hume, Vol. H, pp. 124, 131, 256-282, 337. 

3 



18 



ELIOTS m ENGLAND. 



It was in the Tower that the Black Prince, then in the fifteenth 
century, the pride and delight of England, fell a prey to "the 
wolf-like passions of rival factions." At this period were seen 
the tyrants' darkest deeds. Then it was that royal cousins, in 
wrath, struggled for the crown, now and then dooming the 
unhappy aspirant to a dismal dungeon, or to a dread assassina- 
tion. Rampant for power, they increased the traffic in tools of 
torture, in the building of scaffolds, and in deeds of blood. 

Here (seen by the brothers) is the image of Queen Anne, 
consort of Richard II, on her knees pleading in tears at the 
feet of her lord, for her dear king's own friend, Sir Simon 
Burley, all in vain ; and Sir Simon, " that noble Knight" (1388), 
was made the first victim beheaded upon the new scaffold at 
Tower Hill. Discontent follows Richard II, and soon he 
resigns his kingdom to his relative Bolingbroke, in language as 
follows: "Fair cousin Henry, Duke of Lancaster, I give and 
deliver to you this crown, and therewith all the rights thereto 
depending." Richard himself was then committed to the Tower, 
and thence to Pomfret Castle in Yorkshire ; and to this day a 
sable veil conceals his death. 

Nor was the reign of Bolingbroke peaceful. Ah ! how truthful 
the poet sings, — 

" Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade 
To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, 
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy 
To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?" 

It was here, in 1485, when in front of St. Peter's Chapel, Lord 
Hastings was doomed to instant death at the mandate of Richard 
III. And from here, from within the Tower's dismal recesses, 
the renowned Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, after a long 
imprisonment for religious opinions (1417), was carted away, and 
at the fields of St. Giles was burnt at the stake. And here during 
the reign of Henry the Eighth, when Rome was at its height in 
persecutions, and the populace were frantic in charges of heresy, 
the broad gates of the Tower of London were wide open swung 
in the reception of innocent hearts. 

Under statutes that empowered the i 1 Bishop to imprizon any 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



19 



one suspected " of heresy, the dungeons of the Tower were soon 
filled with pious convicts. The illustrious Lord Chancellor, 
Thomas More, and Fisher, the venerable Bishop of Eochester, 
covered as he was with the frosts of eighty winters, were held 
here as heretics, thus to pine away their otherwise useful lives 
in solitude and sadness, until death at length relieved them. 
They were held under the wrath of King Henry, the professed 
head of the church.* This old bishop, while there, in a letter 
to one of the lords, complains : "I have neither shirt nor sute 
to wear, but that be ragged, and rent so shamefully — and my 
dyett also, God knoweth how slender it is at meny times." 

In 1533, Anne Boleyn was the pious queen of Henry VIII. 
She was escorted to him by the Lord Mayor of London, arrayed 
in scarlet and clad in golden chains, " amidst the great melody 
of trumpets and divers instruments, and a mighty peal of guns." 
In 1536 her home was in the Tower. The traitor gates opened 
wide to receive Queen Anne; she came attended by her jail- 
ers ; her fair fame had departed, and the gloom of death 
overshadowed her. . Charged of unfaithfulness to her king, and 
arraigned before the Duke of Norfolk, she was condemned to 
death, at which she exclaimed, "0 Father! O Creator! Thou 
who art the way, the truth, and the life, Thou knowest I have 
not deserved this death." On the 19th of May, 1536, a mourn- 
ful procession passed over the green. Anne Boleyn, dressed in 
black, surrounded by a retinue of sympathetic maidens, was on 
the way from the Tower to the scaffold, there in person tran- 
scendency beautiful, " mournfully brilliant." Here ended the 
earthly career of a generous queen. 

In 1553, dread royalty again is seen in the Tower, during the 
ten days 5 reign of Lady Jane Grey, who, as it often is told, fell 
a victim to the unholy ambition of the Duke of Northumberland. 
Her husband, Lord Guilford Dudley, was executed about the 
same time, on Tower Hill. Lady Jane, as declared by Fuller, 
"had the innocense of childhood, the beauty of youth, the learn- 



* Parliament conferred on the king, power as a supreme head of the 
church of England.— Hume's Hist, of Eng., Vol. Ill, pp. 189-197, 490, 491. 



20 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



ing of a clerk, the solidity of middle life, the gravity or old age, 
and the soul of a saint." She, like many others, died a victim 
to a low ambition under a thirst for power, and against all law, 
true religion, and common decency. 

At the Cell of Sir John. 

Here the brothers, conducted, have at length arrived. With 
eager eyes they glance at their kind uncle, the martyr, in silent 
solitude. The old man, startled at their footsteps, rising up, 
turns himself hither and thither like a caged lion, as if from a 
deep slumber, or from an absorbing reverie. A long imprisoned 
beard rests loosely upon his breast ; the frosts of dreary winter 
hang, spread wide, upon his shoulders ; yet there is the blood of 
an Eliot in the long, pale, furrowed cheek, and a flash of fire, 
glimmering, still twinkles in the old man's eye. 

The brothers draw near; and oh! with what gladness, what 
love and thankfulness, does the oppressed martyr meet and greet 
them, separated only by intervening bolts and bars. The old 
knight, after an interchange of greetings, pauses, listening to a 
brief detail of their designs for the future, as they were now 
about to leave their native land, to sojofcrn for life in a wilder- 
ness afar off, beyo.nd the high seas, breaking silence, advises 
them thus : "For the just liberties of the realm I remain here. 
This Tower is my home. Bu»t, for you, full of life, England in 
its distractions, having become offensive, it is but wise that the 
Puritan should leave it. Full of vigor, you may as well go to 
the New World. Accept of no office there. Trust to your own 
strength in the faith of God. Divulge not incurable difficulties. 
Keep your own councils, that the disadvantages of this sad Old 
World may not encumber you there in the New; observe the 
law and keep the faith." 

The brothers are silent, sad. An extended hand, a half- 
suppressed adieu, is had, and then an heart-felt, old-fashioned 
farewell is extended and returned. Sadly away the brothers 
turn ; the old knight sinks back into his couch, again thoughtful, 
silent, at rest. 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



21 



By this the shades of night are beginning to becloud the 
Tower, and the brothers, turned, are beginning to tread down- 
ward the various stairways that wind in and about its dark 
dungeons and lofty walls. Descending cautiously, the terrible 
apparitions of England's royal cruelties, with unseemly sights of 
her sainted subjects slain within this fearful fortress, fall con- 
stantly upon their vision. At every footstep, the hollow, sepul- 
chral rotunda resounds with the agonizing sighs and groans, as 
the spectral victims of regal rage and power of the past seem 
constantly to give unearthly utterances. From the ceiling, from 
every step and stairway, the complaints of sainted souls, whose 
blood had been shed here, and whose dust hath been trampled 
under the foot of princely power, seem everywhere audible. 
From the pores of the pilasters and crevices of the eternal 
walls, the innocent blood of men and women, in the midst of 
sepulchral accents, seems to ooze out. Nay, behind every statue 
or image of royalty, behind the bloody block, or rack of torture, 
or statue, as they pass, unseemly ghosts of kings, or of queens, 
or of martyred innocence, strangely appear, peeping out. 

Thus, to the Apostle and brothers in the Tower, while ram- 
bling in the midst of its terrible emblems, did injured humanity, 
and the dread maledictions of a just God, move their Puritan 
minds into a sad melancholy. Out of it, advancing to the arch- 
way of the traitor's gate, there they pause, but to reflect, how 
oft had royalty and grandeur passed beneath its portals; 
how often here had "the dreams of honor and glory," and 
" the brilliancy of courts," been exchanged for the dungeon, the 
torture-room, and the scaffold. Advancing farther out, they 
reach the Bloody Tower, where, near it, is the iron railing upon 
the green, which encloses the block at which Lady Jane Grey 
last kneeled, yielding up her life. 

Thence backward they glance, taking a comprehensive last 
look at that old vast white fortress, and the twelve great towers, 
with embattlements, that stand around it ; and thence, not far 
away, to behold that ancient St. Peter's chapel, within which 
the bodies of fated prisoners numerously in the silent dust 
moulder. 



22 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



Leaving the Tower. 

Now, with heavy hearts, but with lightsome step, leaving, 
the Eliot brothers hasten away on their half-bewildered, back- 
ward return. And now the pale moon, amid the bright stars 
of heaven rising, beholds them wandering, first nearing the old 
College of Heraldry, which records the valor of England's best 
blood; and then next near the towering walls of St. Paul; and 
then round through the stately gateway of Temple Bar, which 
to this day marks the entrance through the once-frowning walls 
of the first London ; and thence away they wander, to the ship 
" Lyon," which on the morrow is to waft them away, — away 
from conflicting powers ; away from unholy, oppressive dynas- 
ties ; away from a bewildered populace and a distracted repre- 
sentation; away from an insane kingdom, driven to terrible 
extremes by unhallowed, cruel conflicts. 

On board the ship, after taking the required oaths of " allegi- 
ance and supremacie," the brothers, in their bunks, tired, all 
night long in dreams are thoughtful, both of the past and of 
the future. Morniug, now breaking in upon them, adorns the 
world with uncommon glories ; and the big ship on the way is 
now beginning to brave the broad billows. The sweet breezes 
of heaven, promising freedom, prosperity, and progress, are 
whispering in the rigging like the harp of a David, the thrill- 
ing, peaceful acclaim of an evangelist, or like the seraphic 
song of congregated angels ; and away that brave old bark, as 
if in the care of a God of Love, moves straight onward, west- 
ward. 

Another night has cast her lights and shades over the vast 
expanse, bringing back again the beauteous morn, when a voice 
from the high deck is heard, — 

" Come aloft, my companions, the billows are beauteous, 
To the God of creation devotedly duteous." 

Obediently all are aloft. And now the boundless ocean, rolling 
up her billows to the sky, and the brilliant azure of the God- 
given sunlight playing upon the wild waters, the ship's canvas, 
and the clouds, inspires the world. 



ELIOTS IN ENGLAND. 



23 



" Ah ! " says the Apostle to his comrades, " this is life, in its 
progress; life foreshadowed! Still, indeed, there are storms 
and gales and even tempests on the way. This highway vast 
is fraught with doubt and dread dangers ; yet through faith 
and trust and trial, we will reach the New World. Nay, as we 
advance farther onward in life's journeyings, not less of storm 
and of tempest will beset us on the way, advancing to that 
beautiful land above, of which our dear old father had in fer- 
vent faith advised us." 

"Be heedful, my brother," said Philip. " Remember, when 
in the Tower, our Sir John advised caution, that neither our 
town of nativity nor the name of the dear father be disclosed." 

" Yes," said the Apostle, " that name, always dear at heart, 
needs never to be expressed. 

* O, no j I '11 never mention him, 
That name shall ne'er be heard ; 
My lips are hence forbidden to speak 
That once familiar word.' " 

Back now to the cabin the brothers return. The old ship, 
keeping her course onward, the breath of heaven swelling the 
sails auspiciously, outrides the storm and tempest, and at 
length, after many days, beneath brighter skies, lands her 
freight of valiant hearts at Plymouth on the shores of New 
England. Philip had come, as if for the defence of liberty, 
being soon found in the gallant ranks of the 4 4 Ancient and 
Honorable," at its origin, and then next in the honored halls 
of legislation. Jacob, also, a Puritan gentleman, had come, 
making himself highly useful in support of a laborious indus- 
try, and in the furtherance of the benign rules of law and 
justice. John was here also, to proclaim the divine law, — 
Love to God, and love to the red-man in the wilderness. 



LESSONS OF LAW AND LIFE. 



11 It is wise to recur to our ancestors. Those who do not look 
upon themselves as a link connecting the past with the future, 
do not perform their duty to the world." — Daniel Webster. 



John Eliot, the Apostle. 



CHAPTER I. 

Nothing in the acquisition of knowledge shall prove * 
more profitable than the study of the lives and charac- 
ters of great and good men. Such men, like an index, 
serve to lead the way to an improved civilization, and to 
a more devoted fidelity to God and to mankind. To 
study and know them is wisdom ; to follow their pre- 
cepts and examples, bespeaks an abundant success in 
this life, and the gain of a glorious reward beyond it. 
The lessons thus to be learned are practical ; tending to 
manliness, to sobriety, to a stern integrity, to a diligent 
industry, and to a fervent faith. 

I therefore invoke the attention of my readers, for a 
brief period, to such light and learning as may be ob- 
tained from the extraordinary life and character of John 
Eliot, as seen in and through his evangelical mission to 
the Indian tribes of New England. For two centuries, 
Eliot, with the faith and fruits of his mission, hath been 
estimated as the common property of all New England. 
Like, as from a province of real estate, held jointly, the 
generations have hitherto been constantly benefited by 
his exemplary productive life and character. 

Still onward, in this light of history, Eliot's force — 

25 



26 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



his holy aspirations, his labors of love, his vast under- 
takings, and his valiant perseverance in the midst of 
opposition, still exist, and shall afford to the intelligent 
reader pleasure and profit forever. 

The obstacles which encumbered his way were hazard- 
ous and fearful, — yet valiantly he advanced. History 
points to no one. man of so much force, against such em- 
barrassments ; of so much perseverance, against such dis- 
couragements ; of so much patience, under such provoca- 
tions ; of so much laborious industry, with an apparently 
slender constitution ; of so much endurance, under severe 
hardships and keen sufferings; and with so much faith 
and consecration to his God and to his fellow-man, — 
never failing, never faltering. 

Such was the man who made our English Bible speak 
the Indian language ; who raised up missionaries ; and 
who, for forty years, preached the Gospel to the wild man 
of the wilderness; and who thereby had turned many 
hearts from a savage life Zion-ward. And wlien the 
dread conflict with Philip had come, and civilization in 
New England, as against barbarism, seemed quivering 
in the scale, yet, protesting against the use of carnal 
weapons, Eliot held the balance of power, and thus, in 
the end, served to tip the scale to the side of civiliza- 
tion — lost the tribes, but saved the white man, who still 
pursued, leaving the lone Indian mother to her lamenta- 
tions : — 

" I will go to my tent, and lie down in despair; 
I will paint me in black, and dishevel my hair ; 
I will sit on the shore where the hurricane blows, 
And will tell to the God of the tempest my woes. 
I will weep for a season, on bitterness fed, 
For my kindred have gone to the mounds of the dead ; 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



27 



But they died not of hunger, nor wasting* decay, — 
The steel of the white-man hath swept them away." 

That balance of power, which the Apostle, in his mission, 
held, was none other than the power of Christian love. 

Life and Death. 

John Eliot first lived in the far-off England, in the 
year 1604. He left, this world of care and conflicts, at 
Roxbury, Mass., May 20, 1690, at the venerable age of 
eighty-six years. 

In personal appearance (if we may judge from his 
portrait), he was a little above medium height, in form 
slender, and in features not entirely unlike the honest 
face of Abraham Lincoln. 

After completing his education in England, Eliot 
embarked for the New World, — landed in Boston in 
November, 1631, — and there, at the age of twenty-seven, 
raised the banner of the Cross. 

Soon, a train of neighbors and friends followed him. 
They settled near him, at Roxbury ; and the next year 
they called him there, to be their minister.* 

Obeying their call, he took his final stand at Rox- 
bury, as if upon the loftiest part of Zion's walls, and 
he held his station there all the way onward, through 
the remainder of his long life.f 

INTOLERANCE. 

That want of toleration, which had driven the Pil- 
grims over here, eleven years previously, probably had 
much influence, inducing Eliot also to sever the social 



* Bacon's Hist, of Xatick, ch. 2, p. 12; ch. 15, p. 152. 
j Memoir of Eliot, pp. 8, 9, 10. 



28 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



ties, to forsake the friends of his youth, and, far away 
over the great deep, to cast his lot among the sons of 
strife. 

Thus, over here, as if at the command of God, " Go 
ye into all the world," the Apostle began his work. He 
began it — where every man ought to begin to labor, to 
wit, at the main obstacle to be overcome — where the 
most good can be done, or where the noblest ends in life 
may be accomplished. 

The Position. 

Looking back, we seem to see the evangelist, as in full 
life, standing on the highest point of that Zion's hill of 
his, as if, at the outset, to look the landscape over. 
Afar off before him, in the distance, the lofty moun- 
tain-peaks tower up towards heaven ; — they stand there, 
against the sky. 

His sharp vision seems to descry the Connecticut, the 
mighty Merrimac, and the Saco, as they, in ten thousand 
rills, leap forth from the mountains, forming these rivers, 
up to that time unmeasured of the Avhite man, and 
which, ever since the Creation, had been rolling and 
meandering downward, through a wild old wilderness, 
to the sea. 

Indian Nations. 

In the dense forest, and in and about these rivers of 
water, and along the shores of the sea, are thirty nations 
of native Indians, numbering, in all, fifty thousand. 
These nations, organized under laws unwritten, wander 
in tribes, as all the inhabitants of the world, before 
civilization dawned, did wander in tribes. 

The Pilgrim Fathers are at Plymouth and vicinity, 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



29 



and the scattered Puritan settlements are beginning to 
make openings in the landscape. 

The field was to be the world ; and this New England 
world, thus spread out before him, was thenceforth to be 
Eliot's field, — a field, then a wilderness, full of ferocious 
beasts, and of ungodly, unbridled red-men ; and yet a 
field which, through the Evangelical leadership of John 
Eliot, is to be cleared up and cultivated ; and which, in 
the far future, under the sunshine of heaven, is to become 
a flowery field, bearing upon it, everywhere, not carnal 
weapons, but the sweet fruits of a Christian civilization. 

And now, at this distant day, although there are 
secluded corners in the field, where the generations have 
gone down, — in which many of us have sometimes been 
made to weep ; yet it is plain to be seen that, through 
the leadership of Eliot, in God's ministry, those corners, 
all over New England, have been made to our people 
as the very gateways to heaven. Plain it is, that this 
New England field, with all its gates and guide-boards 
heavenward, although two hundred years have passed 
away, now remains, and, through all the generations yet 
to come, shall remain, still to flourish and bear fruit, as 
having descended, with all its vernal glories, from that 
same ancient, original Christian proprietor, John Eliot, 
the Evangelist. 

His First Work. 

At first the Apostle, in preparation for his final great 
effort, directed all his sermons to the white man, — 
seeking to build up strong exemplary churches in the 
hamlets held by English settlers, at his own Roxbury, 
and elsewhere.^ 



* Dearborn's Sketch of Eliot's Life, p. 13. 



30 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



His habits were like this : Every second Sabbath of 
his ministry he preached away from home, to the white 
settlers of the neighboring towns.^ And thus onward, 
for the first fifteen years of his ministry ; while, in these 
same years, he was educating, as well as he might, his 
Indian young men and others, who, in due time, were to 
be his preachers, his printers,^ his proof-readers, and 
interpreters ; and who, in the wilderness, were to aid 
him in the vast undertaking of evangelizing the tribes. 

During all these years he was at work with his pen, — 
by pamphlet, by letter, and by many books, — shaping 
and concentrating public opinion to the great plan of his 
operations. Also, by prayer and petition, at home and 
abroad, he from the commencement, and from time to 
time, continually obtained material aid and encourage- 
ment for the carrying out of his .design. 

^ His Apparel. * 

Again, let us glance for a moment at the Evangelist, 
as he appeared two hundred and thirty years ago, when 
about to move upon his Indian mission. 

We will imagine him still there, on the high hill at 
Roxbury, — in his common costume, an English dress- 
coat or sack ; small clothes, long boots, and a slouched 
broad-brimmed hat. 

There he stands, as if divinely meditating, as if con- 
templating the long labors of life, in that vast field 
of which we have spoken, and which the God of Nature 
had spread out before him. 



* History of Natick, eh. 1, p. 12. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



31 



Location of the Tribes. 

From thence, away to the west of him (as he could 
but discover), there are six nations of Mohawks, made 
up of many tribes, leading useless, wayward, wandering 
lives. 

Northeast of him, on the Sagadahock, and all along 
towards the eastern borders of Maine, he calls to his 
vision those troublesome warlike tribes, the Tarratines, 
or Abanaquise, who twenty years previously had come 
up here from the East, wielding weapons of war ; and, 
•accelerated by the plague of 1617, had destroyed the 
entire Patuxet nation, leaving their bones to be bleached 
upon the hills and in the vales, — seen often, doubtless, 
of Eliot, as well as of the Pilgrims. 

Not far away from him, on the left, are the ashes of 
that great Indian fort, on the Mystic, where, as appears, 
through the weapons of war and flames of fire, a hostile 
Pequot nation had in one night (1637) all perished by 
the English sabre. 

To the southwest of him, as he there stands, are the 
Narragansetts, in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, led 
of Canonicus, and of that fated, but brave old chief, 
Miantonimo. 

From the same height, away to the left, are the flagrant 
Mohegans of Connecticut, at the head of which Uncas 
reigned as chief, — wild in all of his infidelity and 
barbarism. 

Then next, more immediately in front of the Apostle, 
as he looks northward, in contemplation, are the Nipmuck 
tribes, roaming and hunting all over that tract of country 
which lies between the great rivers Connecticut and 
Merrimac. Hence, all of us who happen to reside 



32 



JOHN" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



southwest of the Merrimac, if natives, might be denom- 
inated Nipmucks. 

Northward, at Concord, and along the banks of the 
Merrimac, wandered the peaceful Pennacook and the 
Wamesit tribes, then led by that venerable sachem and 
necromancer, Passaconaway, whose people, at a later 
period, were ruled for several years by his son, Wona- 
lancet. 

Though a peace-maker, once, in a time of hostilities, 
this chief, with becoming prudence, established an Indian 
fortification at Fort Hill, on the east of the Concord 
River, at Wamesit.^ 

Eliot's Fidelity. 

The soul-trying incidents of the forty years of the 
Apostle's life, then yet to come, beginning to be disclosed, 
are now breaking in upon his vision. There are lions, 
terribly ferocious, prone, lurking along his pathway, in 
prospect, all the way onward, with all their devouring 
threatenings. 

Yet he must advance, must move onward, to the 
responsible, the noble, and soul-trying duties of an 
evangelist, in the midst of unlettered savages. 

Whatever there may be of trouble on the way or in 
the field of operations, he is constantly, duteously to be 



* We suggest, that on Fort Hill there ought to be erected two 
statues, — one to John Eliot, the Apostle; and another to the peaceful 
Wanalancet, holding the fort. Such statues in our Wamesit, proclaiming 
peace on the one hand, and a Christian civilization on the other, while 
they would evince the magnanimity of our people, would tend, for a thousand 
years, to inspire the generations to a becoming peacefulness, to a diligent 
industry, to a truthful fidelity to mankind, and to a stronger faith in Him 
whom the Apostle so devoutly loved and served. 



JOHjS" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



33 



there. What though the very elements are to conspire 
to hedge up the way ; what though the wintry blasts of 
snow and hail and tempest, as they were wont to come, 
sweeping away " the honors " of a thousand years, from 
that vast old wilderness, — John Eliot is to be there, 
and there, too, in a fervent faith, — faith that the same 
God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, would 
also be there ; and he was there. 

Nay, even though the thunders of war, in their threat- 
enings, begin to break forth from a New England sky, 
such in their terrors as were never known on earth 
before (save in the bloody tragedies of a Homer), even 
then John Eliot must be there, holding out a healing 
hand divine, and bearing aloft the beautiful Christian 
banner of peace and love. 

And though destruction is impending, and a threatened 
distraction may be about to fall upon his native churches, 
driving and carrying his Indian Christian people into 
exile and imprisonment ; yet the Apostle, like the good 
shepherd, is to follow the flock, is to stand between the 
fires, is to administer comfort, and is to bind up the 
broken heart.^ 

Nay, aside from the carnal conflicts of war, when its 
tearful terrors have waned away, there are to the 
evangelist terrible trials still. And what of all this ? 

What though strong men refuse " to bow themselves," 
heeding not the way ? What though the bowl, and the 
wheel, and "the pitcher, be broken"? What though, in 
the events of this New World, the sun and moon and 
the stars are to be darkened ? What even, if all " the 



* Dearborn's Sketch of Eliot's Life, p. 15. 



34 JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 

keepers of the house " are trembling? List ! list ! High 
above all, the tribes are to hear the clarion voice of the 
evangelist, fearlessly proclaiming the word, — faithfully 
seeking to save that which seemed to be lost. 

For Eliot knew, as we know, that man goeth to his 
long home " ; that his " dust must return to the earth as 
it was " ; and that his never-dying spirit must go back to 
the God who gave it. 

Troubles in England. 

Eliot had left the Old World, as we have seen, in 1631, 
when the unfortunate Charles the First was king, and at 
the time when the religious creeds of the realm were 
distracted, all in dread conflict ; when the King was at 
war against Parliament, and Parliament was angry 
against the King; when our English government was 
powerless to advance, its wheels being clogged up, the 
kingdom throughout broken <Jown, and falling apart into 
factions. It was then the religious and political rights 
of the realm were being trampled down under the feet 
of tyrants,* and the armies of England, Scotland, and ^ 
Ireland in conflict were making sad havoc on bloody 
fields of battle. 

Eliot left England, and in leaving forsook, as we have 
seen, the comrades of his youth, among whom there was 
a strong young man, whose valiant heart, like his own, 
was full of republicanism. That man, disgusted with the 
English government in its distracted condition, had with 
other refugees, packed up his trunks to embark for our 
New England shores, but was prevented. It was 



* Hume's History of England, vol. 5, pp. 85-434. Rush., vol. 2, pp. 409-418. 



john eliot, the apostle. 35 

Oliver Cromwell. 

But the God of governments, as if for wise ends, turned 
the intent of Cromwell, to still remain in England ; # while 
John Eliot was led, for another wise purpose, to seek his 
field of apostolic labors in the wilderness of a new world. 

At that time, as we have seen, the English government 
was fast falling to j)ieces through its internal religious 
and political infirmities, which resulted in the downfall 
of King Charles the First, who, at length, was beheaded 
at the decree of about seventy judges. 

Thus, while Cromwell became the great Protector in 
the Old World, John Eliot came over here, and became 
renowned as the great primeval leader to a Christian 
civilization among the settlers and Indian nations of the 
New. 

Material Aid. 

He was encouraged to advance upon his mission 
through influences brought to bear upon the universities 
of Oxford and Cambridge, and upon a missionary society 
in his native England, as well as upon our own Colonial 
government at home. 

Cromwell, as appears, encouraged Eliot$ and Eliot, in 
his way, tried to obey and sustain the English govern- 
ment, under him, as the great Protector of both countries. 

The Book. 

During the existence of Cromwell's government, seven 

* "Urged by his wants and his piety, he had made a party with Hambden, 
his near kinsman, who was pressed only by the latter motive, to transport 
himself into New England, now become the retreat of the more zealous 
among the Puritanical party; and it was on an order of Council which 
obliged them to disembark and remain in England."— Hume, vol. 5, ch. 61, 
p. 437. 



36 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE., 



years, — up to the end of his (the Protector's) life, Sept. 3, 
1658, — Eliot had written a work entitled " The Christian 
Commonwealth," in which he planned, and bestowed 
praise upon, and chalked out a republican form of govern- 
ment. But, alas ! Before the book issued extensively 
from the press, Cromwell dying, the government, in a year 
or two, changed back to a kingdom ; and then Charles the 
Second (a son of the beheaded Charles), being crowned 
king, and becoming apparently dangerous, as against the 
active adherents to Cromwell's administration, is filled 
full of exasperation against all ideas of republicanism. 

This event exposed the Apostle's head to great danger, 
by reason of his having written that "Christian Com- 
monwealth," which indirectly assailed the Crown. The 
Colonial government became anxious, and advised -the 
suppression of the book ; and for the sake of his great 
cause and of his life, Eliot suppressed the manuscript, 
and the book never issued.* 

These were times of trial in both countries. The 
tide in tyrannical events rolled high.f All of the Crom- 
well adherents were narrowly watched. 

The regicide judges, who had sat in the trial of the 
late king, — some of them, caught in England, were 
beheaded there; some of them escaped to foreign 
countries. Three of them at least, doming to Boston 
in 1660, were followed, and were pursued here, in Con- 
necticut, in and about Hadley, Mass., and other places, 
by the king's constables. Fortunately, by flight and 
concealment, from place to place, in the caves of the 
wilderness, they escaped violent death. 



* Eliot's Life, by Francis, p. 210. t 5 Hume, p. 434. 



JOFIN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



37 



Thus, more than two hundred years ago, did John 
Eliot foreshadow our republican form of government 
in his " Christian Commonwealth," thus suppressed ; yet 
his cautious plans and suggestions became popular, and 
lived- to be adopted and sustained, by a noble nation, an 
hundred years after his death. 

" Truth crushed to earth shall rise again, 
The eternal years of God are hers." 

Eliot and the King. 

Still he takes courage. Invoking the angry king, Eliot 
makes him his friend, and also a contributor, in the 
carrying forward his mission to the Indian . nations. 
With long and eloquent letters, he presented to the 
king translations of our English Old and New Testa- 
ments into the Indian language, and thereby obtained 
favor and patronage from the throne itsplf.* 

Republican Government. 

The Hebrew commonwealth, organized and officered 
by Moses of old, undoubtedly had some influence upon 
the Apostle's action, in the forming of a commonwealth. 
In this respect, he could but see Moses had his seventy- 
two elders, which would answer to our TJ. S. Senate; 
his twelve tribes of Israel may be likened to the origi- 
nal thirteen Unite-d States ; and his congregation of the 
people, as appears, may be taken to accord with our 
House of Representatives. 

Moses himself, occupying the place of president, pre- 
sided over the whole. Such a government is supposed 



* Life of Eliot, pp. 258, 259. 



38 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



to be the best, if not the strongest, of all. In this, 
Moses and Cromwell and Eliot and Washington all seem 
to agree. 

Eliot's Ordee. 

In all his operations, the Apostle was exact, and full 
of discipline. A civil officer, Major-General Gooldn, a 
wise, conciliatory man, usually attended him. Gookin 
had been clothed, by the Colonial government, with a 
power of organization over the people, — a power, to a 
certain extent, both judicial and executive. So, it 
appears, Gookin appointed civil officers ; sat as judge, 
holding courts ; and issued commissions to the Indian 
rulers of hundreds or of fifties or of tens, as the tribes, . 
under the Apostle, saw fit to elect them, and as the good 
of the Indian church, from time to time, seemed to 
require.* 

Thus Eliot and Gookin, moving together, constituted 
an efficient, peaceful, executive power ; and, at the same 
time, prudently led the way to a progressive Christian 
civilization. 

Law. 

Believing order to be the first law of heaven, it was 
one of the axioms under which Eliot, in his economy, 
always moved. From his life and example we gather 
these rules : 

1. There must always be a ruler, or leader, to every 
organization. 

2. That a ruler, or leader, is never to be ignored, but 
: — * 

* Bigelow's His. of Natick, p. 22. Sketch of Life of Eliot, p. 17. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



39 



is always to be respected and followed, for the office' sake, 
if for nothing else. 

3. That the first great maxim in a kingdom, to wit : 
that " the King can do no wrong " (though that may not 
be true in fact), is sound in principle, and unless revolu- 
tion is intended, must be observed and followed through- 
out, from the king down to the humblest parent of a 
family. 

Ruleks. 

A leader, once known, whether appointed of man or 
of God (as in case of a parent), must be recognized, ajjd 
must always be followed. Everything else would be 
disorder; everything else is grief; everything else is 
revolution, distraction. 

To illustrate this : take the leader of the family, and 
then the leader of a church organization, and then the 
leader of a town, or state, or of the United States, as 
may be seen in a President. Now every one of these, 
for the peace, safety, and well-being of the respective 
bodies which they severally represent, must be recognized 
as such, and followed. 

For instance, our President,* although many may disap- 
prove some of his acts and measures, yet, in a general 
sense, he must be upheld and sustained. What if he 
was not well chosen ? He was so declared to be by the 
united force and voice of this great nation. Hence he 
must needs be sustained, otherwise anarchy, confusion, 
and general distraction would follow. 

What if he did (as some have alleged) bargain away 
the rights of others, — tending to cripple the political 
liberties of the f reed-man? What if he did extend a 
*1879/ 



40 



JOHN" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



conciliatory compromise to' a Ku-Klux Clan, then armed 
offensively with thousands of rifles, threatening violence 
and blood ? Even if all this be true, by the laws of God 
and the rules of government, it is but wise and just in 
the people to sustain him to the end of his term. Other- 
wise anarchy, distraction, and confusion would follow, 
and thousands of hearts would be made to bleed all over 
the lUhd. 

Hence, duteously, as Eliot would say, we must always 
follow the leader, — in the country at large, in the state, 
and in the family/* Thus, under the Apostle for the 
Indian church, as elsewhere, you would always find a 
leading ruler, with a teacher, and oftentimes an interpre- 
ter, having a watchful care over ten Christians, or over 
thirty, or over fifty, as the peace and prosperity of a 
Christian civilization might require. And to the praise 
of the red-men of the forest, Eliot's rules and ordinances 
were generally observed, respected, and obeyed as such 
by them.* 

Although the Apostle, under the ordinations of God, 
with the discreet Gookin at his side as a magistrate, thus 
ruled, yet he never seemed to rule. 

Teachees. 

O that the spirit of John Eliot, in the sight of all these 
subjects, like the light of heaven at early morn, might 
break in upon us, to inspire our teachers to prepare them- 
selves, that they may train the rising generations to the 
true science and economy of life ; that we may all be 
trained to a becoming servitude, — to a code of genuine 



* Cotton Mather's Magnalia, 3d B., Art. 2, p. 494. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



41 



good manners ; without which there can be no substantial 
success in the world ; that they may train their pupils, 
male and female, to love labor, industrious, ardent, 
economical labor, without which there can be no sound 
health, nor solid, enduring comfort; that we may be 
trained to fervent, lofty aspirations; that henceforth the 
wanderer may be reclaimed, and led upward in life to 
a more congenial condition, and thence onward to a 
glorious immortality. 

Yes, let us be trained, if leaders, to lead justly, kindly, 
and judiciously. If mere servants we remain (and we 
are all more or less servants in this world), let us serve 
heartily and faithfully over everything, — throwing 
bread upon the waters, helping the needy neighbor first, 
and then ourselves, as Eliot would do. 

Bear in mind, that man, in his best economy, lives, by 
helping others to live; and remember, there are roads 
enough to honor, and highways enough heavenward, "for 
all to- go up, without crowding one another." 

Civil Powers. 

All the way along in the Apostle's progress, there were 
many elements of power which had to be respected. 

First of all, there was the parent English government 
at London, then distracted, as we have seen, by terrible 
conflicts. Then, there was the colonial government at 
Boston; and then, the loose, the rude, and undefined 
governments • of the Indian nations. The rights and 
rules, habits and customs, of all these, at all times, were 
to be heeded and respected. For there is no nobler 
reward in this life, than the consciousness of having 
" rendered to all their dues." 
6 



CHAPTER II. 



Disciples. 

Eliot had many pupils, first and last, — some in prep- 
aration for the ministry, some for teachers, interpreters, 
etc. Many of them were schooled at the Indian college 
at Cambridge, among whom there were Sassamon # and 
Ephraim, James the Printer, Daniel, Waban,| Piambo, 
Speen, Oonamo, Tukaperwillin, Ohatawan, Capt. Tom, 
Old Jethro, Numphow, John Thomas, Solomon, Samuel 
Peter, Nesutan,t and many others. Among his white 
assistants, as clergymen, teachers, rulers, etc., there were 
Rawson, Gookin, Thracton, Dettins, Bandit, Noyes, 
Cotton, Mahew, Bourne, and some others. 

Eliot takes Courage. 

From his lofty position, thus far he had been advanc- 
ing, anticipating the obstacles which at times would roll 
in to hedge up his way, and which already were often 
encumbering him with many difficulties. 

* Sassamon was murdered by Philip's Indians.— Memoirs of Eliot, ch. 14, 
p. 86. 

t Waban served as Justice of the Peace at Natick, and held courts as 
such. One of his warrants reads thus : "You, Yon, big constable, quick you 
catch Jeremiah Offscow, strong you hold um, safe youbring um beffore me. 

" Waban, Justice of the Pea ce." 

X Slain in battle fighting for the English at Mt. Hope. — Drake's American 
Indians, B. II, p. 51. 



<8* 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



43 



But now, in sight of the prospect, he is said to have 
broken out in the pathos of his warm and glowing heart : 
"I see [in the distance] the day-breaking, or the sun- 
riding, of the Gospel of Christ in New England." * 

Indian Sermon. 

Among the many places where the tribes were wont to 
congregate, when they came up from their fishing and 
hunting excursions, was a place near Natick in Newton, 
called Nonantum. This, in Indian language, means a 
place of rejoicing. An intellectual Indian chief occupied 
it, by the name of Waban.* And WabaiVs tent was 
there. 

Previously a proclamation had been sent forth, that 
Eliot, on a given day, would preach to the native nations 
at Nonantum. Accordingly, on the twenty-eighth day 
of October, 1646, Eliot stood forth there, for the first 
time, an Evangelist, in the midst of the assembled 
sachems, powows, sanaps, necromancers, the red-man 
in his plumes, and squaws, women, and little children, 
painted and adorned, as in primeval life, with rustic 
beads and rings, and other appendages, fashionable and 
ornamental. Eliot stands forth, above them, proclaiming 
his text (Ezekiel xxxvii, 9): "Prophesy! unto the wind, 
prophesy, son of man ! and say to the wind, — Thus saith 
the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath ; and 
breathe upon these slain, that they may live!" 

All are silent. Above, as he stands over the multitude, 
there is an open sky. The bleak winds of heaven are 
moving the brave old tree-tops into silent, secret 



* Life of Eliot, pp. 27, 28, 79, 80. Sketch of Life of Eliot, p. 13. 



44 JOHl^ ELIOT, THE APOSTLE, 



whisperings. The voice of infidelity, the war-whoop, 
the Indian wood-cry, and the howlings of the wild 
beast, are hushed for the time being. The Apostle's 
grayer went up to the God of the Red-man! They 
sung a song of Zion, — a sermon from that text, and 
from that trumpet-toned, apostolic voice, reverberating, 
fell upon the fiearts of the then heathen inhabitants of this 
New England world, for the first time. 

Next? There 's. something strange in the sun, — 
something strange in the earth and in the skies. 

What ails that sanap out there? What ails the 
soothsayers, and the necromancers, that the pipes they 
were smoking have unconsciously fallen from their lips? 
Out yonder, what ails that young squaw upon the leaf- 
covered ground, with little children about her, that tears, 
forbidden, are falling from her eye-lids ? And afar off, 
what ails the brave old Waban, at the door of his tent, 
weeping? 

What is it but that a live coal from the altar of God 
hath touched Waban's heart? 

Ah ! how true ! how propitious ! Waban is beginning 
to sing that new song, which no man of his race ever 
had sung in New England, from the beginning of the 
world. 

Thence, that point, that place in the wilderness, em- 
phatically had become a place of rejoicing, ever after- 
wards to be held sacred. Indeed, it had become to the 
tribes a temple of worship, a gateway to heaven. 

Natick. 

Near to Nonantum, Eliot obtained a gift (or exchange) 
of lands, on which to build up and organize an Indian 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



45 



town, which they called Natick, and which, in their 
language, means " a place of the hills." 

This Indian town was peopled, organized, and offi- 
cered by Indians, — all the affairs of which were 
conducted in a perfectly orderly manner, by its Christian 
Indian inhabitants, for nearly a century, all through the 
remainder of the Apostle's life, and for nearly fifty 
years afterwards. 

At JNTatick, Eliot, often attended by his Indian ministry, 
continued to meet the assembled tribes of red-men, up 
to the end of his days, as well as in other Indian towns, 
then fast becoming civilized, within his spacious fields 
' of labor. 

Praying Indians. 

These numbered (up to the commencement of King 
Philip's war, 1674) 1,150; first and last, in all, as some 
say, 3,600. 

Infidelity. 

Many of the English settlers, from the beginning of 
Eliot's undertaking, professed to have no faith in the 
'effort to civilize an Indian. 

This, at the outset, tended to embarrass and afflict the 
Evangelist. The desperado, thus aided by the weak and 
jealous white man, who ought to have known better, 
obtained encouragement. 

And thus, oftentimes, his progress was retarded by a 
secret foe within the camp. Yet the labors and achieve- 
ments of John Eliot were more than equal to those of 
ten ordinary active men put together, and his great 
mission moved onward. 



46 



JOm* ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



He soared so far above the mediocrity of his fellow- 
laborers in the vineyard, that the musketry of " the sap- 
pers and miners," who are always combining and ad- 
vancing, in pursuit of great and good men, to traduce 
them, never could reach him. 

S'UXSHIXE A^D THE CLOUD. 

• 

Many years of his mission had now passed away. 
Through storm and sunshine, he had already labored 
among the tribes (from 1646 up to 1674) twenty-eight 
years. In the mean time, our English Bible had been 
made, by the Apostle, to speak the Indian language. 
And our then New England wilderness., in its openings, 
had been dotted with little Christian churches. 

But, alas ! there is a war-cloud in the heavens. King 
Philip is angry, meditating war and blood. John Sas- 
samon, an Indian pupil and preacher, who had been 
schooled in the Indian college at Cambridge, hath been 
murdered by Philip's men. 

Sassamon, heedlessly, while serving with Philip as an 
interpreter, etc., had divulged to the English Philip's 
secret purpose of making war against them.* 

King Philip, obtaining knowledge of this supposed 
treachery of Sassamon, instigated three of his Indians 
to murder him; and this gave rise to the trial of these 
murderers in an English court. All this tended to 
hasten a dread conflict. The war-trump is sounding. 
It comes like the rushing of a terrible tempest, threat- 
ening devastation and death all over this western New 
England world. The tomahawk and scarping-knife, on 



* Hubbard's Indian Wars, pp. 78, 79, 80. Bacon's History of Natick, pp. 
29, 30. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



47 



the one hand, and the English bayonet and the deadly- 
sabre on the other, are beginning to be sharpened. 

Alas ! as against the vengeance of conflicting races, 
as against ten thousand carnal weapons, upraised, threat- 
ening extermination, indeed, what is to become of the 
faithful old Eliot and his Christian churches ? 

Ah ! when the beautiful oriole, down from a leafless, 
wintry sky, animated by the sun-beams of spring, hath 
hung her nest to a branch of the tree-top on high, she 
takes joyful pleasure in that little church-like charge of 
hers, which she holds at the hand of nature's God — her 
joys are the joys of Heaven. 

But there is a cloud in the* sky ; and there are fearful 
mutterings beyond the mountains ; and the tempestuous 
gale howB-f; and, coming down, sweeps away the tree- 
top, madly dashing that dearest little family of hers to 
the deadly earth ! 

Now, in the agonies of despair, she flies from place to 
place, afflicted ; and she mourns — mourned, as we now 
have it, the dear old Eliot, in prospect, thus doomed, 
must mourn. 

But when the clouds had cleared away, and when time, 
that great healer of hearts that bleed, had brought an- 
other lovely day, that little mother dried her tears (if 
tears they have), and she turned again to her duteous 
labors, bringing sticks, and strings, and other material 
things, and builds aloft another habitation; and soon 
rears, and faithfully takes charge of, another little God- 
praising, parent-loving family. 

In this similitude ? I briefly foreshadow that part of 
John Eliot's life, which, among other things, coming as 
lessons from his exemplary wife, will be elaborated in 
my next chapters. 



48 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Still there is a cry without — King Philip is on the 
war-path ! Murder ! murder ! Sassamon is murdered of 
Philip's Indians ! The terrible trump of war, afar, is 
blowing its blast, with dread alarms, reverberating all 
over the settlements ! 

Meanwhile, the three Indian murderers — Mattashu- 
nanamo, Wam-pappaquam, and Tobias — arrested by 
English officers, are brought into court at Plymouth, 
to be tried by English judges/* The judges are there, 
and the jury is there, with five red men added to it, 
as advisers, or as a mere show of fairness ; and the 
Indian prisoner, above named, are there, standing, 
trembling, doomed, ujdoi? an indictment, to be tried 
for their lives. An allegation in the indictment reads 
as follows : — 

" For that being accused, that they did with joynt consent 
vpon the 29 of January anno 1674 att a place called Asso- 
wamset pond wilfully and of sett purpose and of malice fore 
thought and by force and amies murder John Sassamon another 
indian, by laying violent hands on him and striking him, or 
hoisting his necke, vntil hee was dead; and, to hyde and conceale 
this their e said murder att the tyme and place aforesaid did cast 
his dead body through a hole of the ice into the said pond" 

It is now that* the much-suspected, much-feared King 
Philip enters that court ; and, denying the right of the 
English to try his own Indian subjects, for the killing of 
an Indian, promulgates his own notions of law and right, 
in language purporting, in substance, to be a plea to their 
jurisdiction; if we may speak in poetic form, substan- 
tially thus: — 



* Hubbard, Hist, of Indian Wars, pp. 80-82. Hist, of Natick, pp. 29, 30. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



49 



What right, what law, these prisoners to arraign, 

Have Englishmen, in this, my own domain ? 

What lease of venue, from allotted lines, 

To make invasions, and to adjudge of crimes ! 

Why seek the Indian's life, in guile forlorn, 

Of these three men, of native mothers born? 

Who one and all, with Sassamon, the slain, 

Were my liege subjects, bound by laws the same, 

Which governed tribes a thousand years ago, 

But which, evaded, brings an endless woe. 

What mind, what project, points your boundless sway, 

But hence to drive the red-man, far away 

From this fair land, his birthright and his wealth, 

And hold these regions vast, through royal stealth ! 

With flagrant wrong, the tribes will ne'er concur, 

And to your bold intrusion, I demur ! ^ 

My subjects here, an English court may try, — 

By spurious judgments, they may fall and die; 

Yet vengeance, dread, shall point the red-man's steel, 

And to the God of battles I '11 appeal ! 

Philip withdrew, and ne'er returned again ; 

His truthful talk was uttered but in vain ; 

The prisoners held, and thus condemned to die, 

Brought darkness, gathering o'er this western sky; 

The bloody sunset, and the forked light, 

That broke the curtain of that fearful night, 

Awaking English matrons, 'mid alarms, 

To hug sweet infants with tenacious arms, 

Foretold gross carnage of successive years, 

And devastations in a land of tears. 

True to his word which danger thus defied, 

Philip the pilgrims fought, and fighting died ; 

With countless victims by the self-same blade 

Which mutual madness had in folly made.* 



* From my Epics, Lyrics, and Ballads, p. 344. 



CHAPTER III. 



Iisr the foregoing chapters we have spoken of the les- 
sons which ought to be learned from John Eliot's life 
and character ; have alluded to his birth in England, to 
his education there, and to his arrival at Boston in the 
month of November, 1631 ; and in the narration have 
told of his former friends landing here in the follow- 
ing year, and settling at Roxbury ; how he then and 
there became their pastor, and remained their minister 
to the end of his long life ; how, for the first fifteen 
years, he preached solely to the white-man ; how, during 
that time, he was educating Indian boys to the English 
language, and white men's boys to the Indian language ; 
and .how, in the same period, he had prepared many 
young men for the ministry, that they might, in the 
Indian dialect, preach to the tribes of the wilderness ; 
and how, at the same time, he had begun to make our 
English Bible speak the Indian language. And when he 
had prepared his young ministry to follow him in suc- 
cession to the apostolic work, he then, Oct. 20, 1646, 
amid the Indian wigwams in the wilderness, preached his 
first sermon to the assembled tribes at Nonantuin. How 
Natick was obtained of the government, for the organ- 
ization of an Indian town ; how it was officered by 
Indians, who administered the government of it, as 
Christian citizens, for nearly a century. How our apostle, 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



51 



from the first, advanced as a leader, a law-giver, and as 
an evangelist ; how he wrote up his " Christian Common- 
wealth," favoring a republican government under the 
great Protector, Oliver Cromwell ; how Cromwell, then 
dying (1658), and before the book effectually issued 
from the press, Eliot, at the frown of the king, and at 
the command of our colonial government, suppressed it, 
and thus saving his mission, and perhaps his own head, 
he appeased the wrath of Charles the Second, who had 
then been crowned king of the reinstated kingdom 
under which our fathers lived. His two letters to the 
king, the one written in 1661, and the other in 1663, are 
' given below. 

To the High and Mighty Prince Charles the Second, by the Grace 
of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, De- 
fender of the Faith, &c, the Commissioners of United Colo- 
nies in JSfew England with increase of all happiness, &c. 

Most Dread Sovereign : — 

If our weak apprehensions have not misled us, this work will 
be no unacceptable present to your Majesty as having a greater 
interest therein, than we believe is generally understood, which 
(upon this occasion) we deem it our duty to declare. 

The people of these four Colonies (confederated for mutual 
defence in the time of the late distractions of our dear native 
country) your Majesty's natural born subjects, by the favor and 
grant of your father and grandfather, of famous memory, put 
themselves upon this great and hazardous undertaking, of plant- 
ing themselves at their own charge in these remote ends of the 
earth, that, without offence and provocation to our Brethren, 
and Countrymen, we might eujoy that liberty to worship God, 
which our consciences informed us was not only our right, but 
duty ; as also that we might (if it so pleased God) be instrumental 
to spread the light of the Gospel, the knowledge of the Son of 



52 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



God, our Saviour, to the poor barbarous heathen, which by his 
late Majesty, in some of our Patents, is declared to be his prin- 
cipal aim. 

These honest and pious intentions have, through the grace 
and goodness of God, and our kings, been seconded with propor- 
tionable success ; 

That other part of our errand hither hath been attended 
with endeavors and blessing, many of the wild Indians being 
taught, and understanding the doctrine of the Christian religion, 
and with much affection attending such preachers as are sent to 
teach them, many of their children are instructed to write and 
read, and some of them have proceeded further, to attain the 
knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues, and are brought up 
with our English youths in University learning. There are di- 
vers of them that can, and do read some parts of the Scripture, 
and some catechisms which formerly have been translated into 
their own language, which hath occasioned the undertaking of 
a greater work, viz., the printing of the whole Bible, which 
(being translated by a painful labor amongst them, who was 
desirous to see the work accomplished in his clay) hath already 
proceeded to finishing the New Testament, which we here 
humbly present to your Majesty, as the first fruits and accom- 
plishments of the pious design of your royal ancestors. 

" Sir : — The shines of your royal favor upon these undertak- 
ings, will make these undertakings to flourish, notwithstanding 
any malevolent aspect from those that bear evil will to this Lion, 
and render Your Majesty more illustrious and glorious to after 
generations. 

The God of heaven long preserve and bless Your Majesty with 
many happy clays, to his glory, — the good and comfort of his 
Church and people. — Amen." 

Letter II. 
Most Dread Sovereign : — 

As our former presentation of the New Testament was graci- 
ously accepted by your Majesty, so with all humble thankfulness 
for that royal favor, and with the like hope, we are bold now to 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



53 



present the vrfiole Bible, translated into the language of the 
natives of this country, by a painful laborer in that work, and 
now printed and finished, by means of the pious beneficence of 
Your Majesty's subjects in England; which also by your special 
favor hath been continued and confirmed, to the intended use 
and advancement of so great and good a work as is the Propa- 
gation of the Gospel to these poor barbarians in tjiis (erewhile) 
unknown world. 

Translations of the Holy Scriptures, — the Word of the King 
of kings, — have ever been deemed not unworthy of the most 
princely dedications ; examples whereof are extant in divers 
languages. But your Majesty is the first which hath received 
one j.n this language, or from the American world, or from any 
parts so remote from Europe as these are, for aught that ever 
we heard of. 

Publication also of these sacred writings to the sons of men 
(who here, and here only, have the ministers of their eternal 
salvation revealed to them by the God of heaven) is a work that 
the greatest princes have honored themselves by. 

But, to publish and communicate the same to a lost people, as 
remote from knowledge and civility, much more from Christi- 
anity, as they were from all showing, civil and Christian 
nations, — a people without law, without letters, without riches, 
or means to procure any such thing, — a people that sat as deep 
in darkness and in the shadow of death as (we think) any since 
the creation. This puts a lustre upon it that is superlative, and 
to have given royal patronage and countenance to such a publi- 
cation, or to the means thereof, will stand among the marks of 
lasting honor in the eyes of all that are considerate, even unto 
after generations. 

And, though there be in this Western world many Colonies of 
other European nations, yet we humbly conceive, no prince has 
had a return of such a work as this ; which may be some token 
of the success of your Majesty's plantation of New England, 
undertaken and settled under the encouragement and security of 
your royal father and grandfather, of .famous memory, and cher- 
ished with like gracious aspects from your Majesty. 



54 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Though indeed the present Poverty of these plantations could 
not have accomplished this work had not the forementioned 
Bounty of England lent Belief ; nor could that have continued 
to stand us in stead, without the Influence of Your Royal Favor 
and Authority, whereby the Corporation there for Propagating 
the Gospel among these Natives hath been established and en- 
couraged, (w^hose Labor of Love, Care and Faithfulness in that 
Trust, must ever be remembered with Honor;) yea, when 
private persons, for their private Ends, have of late sought Ad- 
vantages to deprive the said Corporation of Half the Possessions 
that had been by Liberal Contributions, obtained for so Religi- 
ous Ends. We understand that, by an Honorable and Righteous 
Decision in your Majesty's Court of Chancery, their Hopes 
have been defeated, and the Thing settled where it was and is ; 
for which great favor and illustrious fruit of Your Majesty's 
Government we cannot but return our most humble thanks in 
this Public manner; and as the result of the joint Endeavors of 
Your Majesty's subjects, there and here, acting under your 
Royal Influence, We present You with this work, which upon 
sundry accounts is to be called yours. 

Religion is the End and Glory of mankind, and as it was the 
professed End of this Plantation, so we design ever to keep it 
in our eye as our main design, (both to ourselves and the natives 
about us,) and that our products may be answerable thereunto. 
Give us therefore leave, (Dread Sovereign) yet -again humbly to 
beg the continuance of your Royal Favor, and of the Influences 
thereof, upon this poor plantation, The United Colonies of New 
England, for the securing and establishment of our Civil Privi- 
leges and Religious Liberties hitherto enjoyed; and upon this 
Good Work of Propagating Religion to these Natives, that the 
Supports and Encouragements thereof from England may be 
still countenanced and conflrmed. 

May this Nursling still suck the Breast of Kings, and be fos- 
tered by your Majesty, as it hath been by your Royal Predeces- 
sors, unto the preservation of its Main Concernments. It shall 
thrive and prosper to the Glory of God and the Honor of your 
Majesty. Neither will it be any loss or grief unto our Lord the 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



55 



King, to have the blessing of the Poor to come upon Him, and 
that from these Ends of the Earth. 

The God by whom Kings Reign and Princes Decree Justice, 
Bless Your Majesty and establish your Throne in Righteousness, 
in Mercy and in Truth, to the Glory of His Name, the Good of 
His People, and to your own Comfort and Rejoicing, not in this 
only but in another World." 

Progress. 

I have already spoken of the New England landscape as 
seen in 1631 ; of the location of the various Indian nations, 
then roaming upon it, wild hunters of the wilderness. 
We come now to speak more particularly of Eliot's 
perseverance and progress in the fourteen Indian towns, 
of his care, and of his 3,600 praying Indians, up to 1674,* 
when the tearful terrors of Philip's war began to becloud 
New England, bringing dread dismay to the souls of men, 
women, and children. How previously, in 1648, the 
four colonies heedlessly, and perhaps unintentionally, 
retarded Eliot's mission of love, by permitting the use 
of carnal weapons, with all their appalling consequences, 
as against Christianity; and by giving their unjust 
assent to the same, as may be seen in the murder of that 
life-long Englishman's friend, the brave old Miantonimo.* 
Thus many instances of cruelty and of crime came like 
clouds, floating in, polluting the atmosphere, all tend- 
ing to hedge up Eliot's highway to civilization and 
Christianity. 

Yet in spite of these terrible happenings ; in spite of 
all the carnal outrages on the one side and on the other, 
— of war, of conflagration, of skirmishes, and murders 



* My Duston, and New England Wars, pp. 160-169. 



56 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



in the midst of his people, Eliot's mission of love 'had 
prospered all the way through. Up to 1674, he had 
made constant, fruitful progress. 

His Care for Schools. 

From the first, Eliot had evinced uncommon interest 
towards the rising generations. Cotton Mather bears 
testimony to his strong force in that direction. 

At one of the synods held in Boston, Mather says: 
"I heard Eliot pray: 'Lord! for schools everywhere 
among us ; * that our schools may flourish ; that every 
member of this assembly may go home, to procure a 
good school to be encouraged, in the town* where he 
lives ; that before we die, we may all be happy to see a 
good school established in every part of the country.' " 

Indian Schools. 

So it was, by his resistless force of character, as time 
advanced, an Indian college at Cambridge, being erected, 
was supplied with students for the ministry ; and thus 
his disciples, both red and white, were schooled to be his 
successors in the vast undertaking of evangelizing the 
red-men of New England. Up to 1674, Eliot's mission 
had advanced, and his progress had been favored, 
apparently, by the great Head of the Church. 

. Rulers and Ministers. 

Many assistants, as well as successors, were needful to his 
mission. Proceeding to the translation of the Bible into 



* Memoirs of Eliot, p. 74. Adams' Life of Eliot, p. 51. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



57 



the Indian tongue, scholars, well tutored in the languages, 
both Indian and English, had become a necessity. Hence, 
many had been raised up as volunteers, to enter his field 
of progress, as teachers, as rulers, as printers, as trans- 
lators, and as ministers, to supply the various towns 
where the Apostle had established churches, or Indian 
preaching stations. 

In all this, as we have seen, Eliot had been encouraged 
by the aid of " a Society " in the old world, organized 
there, " for the propagation of the Gospel in New Eng- 
land"; and by Cromwell, by the Colonial government 
here, and otherwise. For in his pastorate at Roxbury, 
where he preached but once in two weeks generally, the 
remainder of his time being devoted to his books, and to 
the various tribes, as they gave him gospel gatherings, in 
the wilderness or near the sea-shore, he was sustained by 
a constant salary to the end of his life. 

Conference of Sagamores. 

On the 10th of June, 1651, having called together, 
from all quarters, the many sachems and sagamores, and 
their attendants, of New England, he held a discourse 
with them, on the subject of religious worship, and of 
carrying his great undertaking into effect. 

On that occasion, they were induced to subscribe to a 
general approval of his purpose, and among other things, 
they made choice of rulers, as follows : one ruler for an 
hundred men ; two rulers of fifty each ; ten rulers of 
ten men each. # 



* Drake's American Indians, B. II, p. 113. Mather's Magnalia, B. Ill, p. 
512. Memoirs of Eliot, p. 67. Life of Eliot, pp. 117, 118. 

8 



58 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Before the adjournment, they signed Eliot's covenants, 
and endorsed their consent generally to the days pf 
fasting and prayer, which, on that occasion, had been 
appointed. 

The Covenant 

which the Indians had signed, though somewhat long, 
was to the point. It began, and ended, thus : — 

"We are the sons of Adam. We and our Fathers have 
a long time been lost in our sins ; but now the mercy 
of the Lord begins to find us out again. . . . Oh! 
Jehovah, teach us wisdom in thy Scriptures ! Let the 
grace of Christ help us, because Christ is the wisdom of 
God. Send thy sjDirit into our hearts, and let it teach 
us ! Take us to be thy people — and let us take Thee to 
be our God ! " * 

^ Church at Natick. 

In the year 1661, Eliot's first Indian church was organ- 
ized, it being a day of baptisms. At this date he had 
completed his translation of the New Testament. In 
1663 he had also completed the printing of the Old 
Testament in the Indian language. At this, it is said, 
the commissioners of the four colonies were greatly 
pleased. 

He then proceeded to the translation of the Psalter ; 
and then to the " Practice of Piety," which, being printed 
in the Indian language, became popular among the tribes, 
who took several editions of it in the years 1665 and 
1667, and up to 1687. 



* Memoirs of Eliot, ch. 13, pp. 83, 84. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



59 



In 1666, Mr. Eliot had established a lecture station at 
Natick, his first Indian town ; and about the same time, 
making proclamation, he called together a multitude of 
Indians at Marshpee. There he took from them con- 
fessions of their Christian knowledge, faith, and practice. 
Afterwards (Aug. 17, 1670), Mr. Bourne was ordained 
over the native church at Natick. 

Peace. 

In the year 1671,* the settlers in Plymouth colony 
were threatening to make war against a neighboring 
tribe, the Missokonog Indians. Eliot hearing of this, 
and trembling for the safety of his Indian churches, at 
once dispatched a committee to proceed to that place of 
danger, as mediators, with instructions (from Eliot) as 
follows : — 

We, the poor church at ISTatick, hearing that the 
honored Rulers, and good People of Plymouth, are 
pressing, and arming soldiers to go to war against the 
Mis-so-konog Indians, for what cause we know not. 
Though they pray not to God, we hope they will! And 
we do mourn, and pray for them, and desire greatly that 
tiaey may not be destroyed. Especially because we have 
not heard that they have done anything worthy of 
death. 

Therefore we do send these two brethren, Anthony 
and William, who were formerly our messengers to 
those parts; — and we request John Sassamonf to join 
them — 



* Bacon's History of Natick, pp. 24-86. 

t Sassamon was afterwards slain.— Drake, B. Ill, p. 9. 



60 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



And this trust we commit nnto you, our dear 

brethren and beloved — 

First, to go to the misso-konog Indians, or who else 
may be concerned, in the quarrel; — tell them the poor 
churches in Natick, send them two Scriptures. 

When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against 
it, then j^roclaim j)eace unto it. 

And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, 
and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people 
that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and 
they shall serve thee.' 

* Dare any of you, having a matter^ against another, 
go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints ? 

" ' Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the 
world ? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye 
unworthy to judge the smallest matters ? 

"'Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How 
much more things that pertain to this life ? 

" ' If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to 
this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in 
the church. 

" ' I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a 
wise man among you ? no, not one that shall be able to 
judge between his brethren? 

" 4 But brother goeth to law with brother, and that 
before the unbelievers.' f 

"If they of Missokonog accept this our exhortation, 
tell them, that the Church, also, have sent you to the 
Governor ; — tell him that the Church hath sent you to 
be mediators of peace; — on behalf of the Missokonog 
Indians, or any other of their neighbors — ... 



* Deut. xx, 10, 11. 



1 1 Cor. vi, 1-6. 



JOHN" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



61 



44 Nay, — beseech them all, to consider, what comfort it 
will be, to kill, or to be killed, — when no capital sin hath 
been committed, or defended by them — * 

"And we request you, our beloved brethren, to be 
speedy, in your motions. We shall endeavor to follow 
you in our prayers ; — and shall long to hear of a happy 
peace, — that may open a clear door for the passage of 
the gospel among the people. 

"Thus, commending you to God, in prayer, — we do 
send you forth, upon this great service of peace-making, 
which is evidently the flower and glory of Christ's 
kingdom." 

(Signed) John Eliot, 

with the consent 
Natick, Aug. 1, 1671. of the Church, j 

Indian Stations. 

About this time, the Apostle had towns of Christian 
Indians as follows : — 

JVatick, his first town, had in it some 29 families, and 
145 inhabitants, occupying 6,000 acres of land. Here, 
as perhaps in other localities, the Indian people on the 
Lord's days, and on other lecture days, were called 
together at the sound of a drum. 

Pekemit (Stoughton), then reckoned to be 14 miles 
south of Boston, contained 12 families, and 60 Indians, 
occupying 6,000 acres of land. 

Has-sa-namesit (Grafton) had a church organized in 
1671. About 30 of the natives had been baptized. It 
is said, in general, they all sustained the Sabbath, and 
church-worship, in a becoming manner. 

Okom-ma-kemesit (Marlboro'), then 30 miles west of 



62 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Boston, had 10 native families, cultivated 6,000 acres of 
soil, with orchards planted by Indians. Solomon was 
their teacher. 

JVashobah (Littleton), then 25 miles west-northwest 
from Boston, contained 10 Indian families and 50 souls, 
holding lands 4 miles square. John Thomas was their 
teacher. 

Wagwn-qua-cog, situated between Natickand Grafton, 
had 11 native families and 55 inhabitants, who, as 
appears, " worshipped God, kept the Sabbath, and adhered 
to the duties of civil order." Job was their teacher. 

Pentucket (or Tewksbury), situated at the confluence 
of the Merrimac and Concord Rivers, contained 2,500 
acres, had 15 Indian families, and 75 souls.* 

Numphow lived here, as their ruler, and his son Samuel 
(named by the English) served his father here, as an 
assistant teacher. They had been educated at the 
expense of that society in England of which we have 
spoken. 

This being a favorable fishing station, the tribes at 
certain seasons, from various quarters, often congregated 
here. 

Eliot had sometimes preached at Pawtucket Falls 
during the long life-time of Passaconaway.-\ This ven- 
erable sachem was generally present to hear the sermon, 
to which he and his tribes usually listened attentively. 

One day at the Falls, after the sermon, the Indians 
propounded to the Apostle many questions. 

At one time (1648) the old chief, who probably had 
seen, upon these hill-sides, the frosts of an hundred 



* Memoirs of Eliot, pp. 101, 102, 140. 

t Drake's American Indians, B. Ill, pp. 93, 94. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



63 



winters, rose up at the close of the service, and publicly- 
announced his belief in the Englishman's God. Among 
other things, Eliot himself sj)eaks of him thus : — 

" He said he never heard of God before as he now 
doth ; that he would consider the matter, — and would 
persuade his two sons [then present] to do the same." 

The Text 

(Malachi i, 11), translated for the occasion, was as follows : 
" From the rising of the sun to the going down of the 
same, my name shall be great among the c Indians ' ; and 
in every place, prayers shall be made unto my name ; and 
a pure 'prayer 5 ; — for my name shall be great, among 
the 'Indians' (saith the Lord £ of hosts')."* 

At Wamesit Again. 

On the 5th of May, 1674, Eliot comes once again, to 
meet the assembled tribes, — Major-General Gookin at- 
tending the Apostle, — and holds a court here. They 
were together when they came, and when they went 
away. 

Public notice had been given for the convention of 
the tribes, held at that time, where the Eliot Church, in 
Lowell, now stands. Gathering in, they filled up the 
space-way between the wigwams on that hill-side, to 
hear the Apostle, — all curious, all anxious. 

At that time, the dark cloud, which had begun to 
overshadow New England, portending war, brought 
dread fear to all. This must have quickened the foot- 
step of the Christian red-man, as he came in with his 



* Francis' Life of Eliot, p. 107. 



64 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



squaw and little ones, coming, as they did, from Amos- 
keag and other places, that they might learn lessons, and 
be encouraged by that great and good man, the Apostle ! 

Thus, now, the many tribes are here; Numphow is 
here ; Samuel and Wonalancet are here ; and Gookin is 
here. The sun has gone down beyond the Wachusette 
hills ; the shades of night are spread out in the skies ; 
the din of Pawtucket Falls is audible ; and beneath the 
stars of heaven, as they seem to gaze down approvingly, 
the voice of the Evangelist, like the voice of a God, falls 
in upon the assembled tribes, at Wamesit, for the last, 
last time.* 

"Wonalancet. 

He, then about fifty years of age, being present, was 
seriously impressed among others ; and rising up at the 
close of the discourse, addressed Eliot and Gookin 
thus : — 

" Sirs, you have been pleased for four years, in your 
abundant love, to apply yourselves particularly unto me 
and my people ; to exhort, press, and persuade us to 
pray (to God). I am thankful to you for your pains. I 
must acknowledge, have all my days been used to pass 
in an old canoe ; and you exhort me to change that old 
canoe, to which I have hitherto been unwilling. But 
now, I yield to your advice." f 

He was a son of Passaconaway. The father, at the 
age of more than a century (as recorded), had gone 
hence. The son succeeding him, as chief sachem of the 
Penacooks, including the Wamesits, had . spread his 



* Text, Matt, xxii, 1-14. 



f Memoirs of Eliot, p. 102. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



65 



wigwam tent here, — and here, upon our beautiful Fort 
Hill, had erected his fortification, as we have seen. This 
was at about the beginning of dread hostilities, — during 
which, being a peace-niaker, Wonalancet fled away with 
many of his men ; but returned, when he had reason to 
believe the conflict had come to an end. At length 
(1677), disgusted with the repeated, unprovoked ill- 
treatment of some of the settlers towards him and his 
kindred race, he, after selling out all his lands, finally 
wandered away into Canada, leaving his native hills, — 
and never, never returned.* 

Eliot's Progkess. 

In 1674, and up to that time, although terrible difficul- 
ties had intervened, yet Zion, even in a wilderness of 
many conflicts, as appears, had made progress. But 
now, through the threatenings of King Philip, under the 
many outrages of individual settlers, a terrible war is at 
hand. 

The very elements are angry, and the muttering thun- 
ders of war are everywhere breaking in against Eliot's 
mission, and against the Christian civilization of the 
New England tribes. 

The top of Zion's tree, so to speak, on which Eliot's 
Indian churches hang, is now beginning to be tossed by 
the tempest ; the tornado gathers blackness, and the light- 
nings, followed by thunderbolts, are shooting down from 
the skies, chilling the blood of mortals, and, in spite of 
the Apostle and his peaceful Christians, distracting the 
populace, and turning their God-given love into mad- 



* Drake's His., B. IH, pp. 95-97. 

9 



66 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



ness, cruelty, and blood. Beneath its blackness are the 
fagot and the tomahawk, with all their nightly and morn- 
ing horrors. Indeed, on the one side and on the other, 
it is known to be a war of gxtermination, — a war, not 
based upon the overwhelming power of Christian love, 
but upon the madness of brute force, wielding the blood- 
stained weapons of demons, — a war in which the peace- 
ful Christian Indian will not be allowed to stand neutral ; 
but is to be compelled to take up arms against his own 
kindred race, or be manacled, imprisoned, or slain by the 
white man ; and a war in which the Bible, the Psalter, 
and the Prayer-book are to be laid aside, giving place to 
the deadly carnal weapon. 

To all this, Eliot, in the agonies of his heart, demurred. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Alternative. 

So it was ; every neutral Indian, by the colonial gov- 
ernment, was branded as an enemy, however pure in 
thought or deed, or circumspect in life, he might be. 

Under this pressure, some of the natives, not being 
willing to allow their own kindred people to be de- 
stroyed, fled into the ranks of King Philip ; some of 
them took up arms for the English ; some of them, like 
Wonalancet, seeking peace, wandered away into the 
dense wilderness afar off ; # while Eliot's non-resistant, 
Christian red-men were seized, as at Natick, manacled, 
and boated down Charles River, and were held at Deer 
Island as j)risoners of war.f 

James the Printer. 

In sight of the dread alternative thus offered, in which 
Eliot's Indians were doomed to take sides, James, although 
always heretofore faithful to the white man, now turning, 
fled away, and joined his kindred nationality. He served 
under King Philip, and was found with Philip's forces 
in the invasion of Lancaster, which ^captured Mrs. 



* Dearborn's Sketch of Eliot's Life, p. 15. 
f Francis' Life of Eliot, pp. 277, 278. 



68 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE a 



Rowlandson, and held her for some months in captivity .* 
James had a desire, it seems, to save his race from 
the extermination then impending; yet remembering, 
as he must, the many good things which he had learned 
from the Apostle, redeemed himself in favoring the 
redemption of Mrs. Rowlandson from her captivity as 
follows. Long had this pious lady sought redemption, 
after extreme abuse, privation, and sorrow, but in vain. 
Being a clergyman's wife, a great price for her release 
was demanded. 

One day, Mr. Hoar, with others from Boston, by 
permission entered King Philip's wigwam camp in the 
forest, to obtain this lady from captivity, and offering to 
Quinnopin, her master, an hundred dollars. He refused 
to give her up. The savage said it was not enough, and 
persisted in the refusal. It was all the money; and 
Mrs. Rowlandson is seen weeping, in a distracted, 
hopeless condition. James the Printer, seeing this, and 
his Christianized heart touched by the incident, ap- 
proaching Mr. Hoar, said, "Go again to Quinnopin [her 
master] ; offer him the hundred dollars again, and give 
him a pint of rum." His suggestion was obeyed ; the 
money, with the rum, was accepted ; and the oppressed 
captive was set free. 

Soon afterwards this lady w^ent forth with her revered 
husband, both as missionaries in New England preach- 
ing the gospel, until he was slain by the tribes ; and then 
Mrs. Rowlandson prepared and published her popular 
book often found in our Sabbath schools, in which she 
gives many a startling incident of her captivity. 



* Drake's American Indians, B. II, pp. 50, 51. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



69 



Job Nesutan.* 

Nesutan, another of Eliot's disciples, when the dread 
alternative came, taking sides in the use of carnal 
weapons, elected to turn into the fight in behalf of the 
English. Job had been long with James the Printer in 
Eliot's service ; was a good linguist in the English 
tongue, had worked on the Bible and other books 
as a printer in the Indian language. In war he proved a 
valiant soldier, and fell in the fight during the first 
expedition at Mount Hope. 

Old Jethro. 

This pious Indian preacher had labored in the vine- 
yard under Eliot and Gookin at Lancaster and other 
places, and had been long in the service. But, sad for 
him, when the dread alternative of the contest offered 
itself, he was found on the side of his own kindred 
and countrymen. This was the extent of his crime; 
yet the last his Christian brethren saw of him, he was in 
the hands of desperadoes on the briery pathway to 
Boston, with a rope about his neck, to be hanged. f And 
the Christian " cry " of Old Jethro was heard no more 
"in the wilderness." 

Thus it was that numerous desperadoes could have 
their own way, when carnal weapons had obtained the 
ascendency, encouraged, as they were, by the barbarous 
examples of cruelty and torture which had long lived 
to disgrace the government of England. 



* Drake's American Indians, B. II, p. 51. 

t Jethro. See Drake's American History, pp. 81, 83, 90. 



70 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Death of King Philip. 

True it is, and it is but just to say it, when King 
Philip, in the fight for his country and nation, had been 
shot down in his native forest, his lifeless body torn 
asunder, and divided, was borne away in pieces as by 
brute beasts ; and then the wife and the son were sold 
into slavery. Against all these, and other practices of 
the kind, Eliot, by his eloquence, by prayer and petition, 
constantly remonstrated. Philip is no more. # 

" He felt his life-blood freezing fast ; 

He grasped his bow, his lance and steel ; 
He was of Wampauoag's last, 
To die were easy — not to yield. 

"His eyes were fixed upon the sky; 
He gasped, as on the ground he fell ; 
None but his foes to see him die ; 
None but his foes his death to tell." 

The Sham Fight. 

As truth impels us, we turn next to the great Training. 
About a month after the death of King Philip, the war 
then being supposed to be ended, proclamation had been 
made by the English, that on the sixth day of Septem- 
ber, 1676, there was to be a great training at Cocheco 
(Dover, N. H.), in which the red-man, from every part" of 
New England, was invited to participate. That day 
arrived. The peaceful Wonalancet was there; four hun- 
dred other Indians were there ; among whom were that 
scattered and bereaved remnant of Eliot's men, from 

* Drake's Amer. Indians, Book III, pp. 42-44. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



71 



Wamesit, and from other places; — some of whom. had 
been jDressed into the fight, as against a strong desire to 
be neutral ; some of them, peaceful, had fled away, but 
had returned at the joyful news of peace; — and all, 
willing to join the white man, bringing the Christian 
olive-branch, had, as invited, come to the great training 
at Cocheco. The brigade was formed, Major Waldron, 
who four years afterwards was slain at midnight, was 
the commanding-general of the day. In the order of 
military exercises, there was to be a sham fight. In this, 
the Indians, without weapons, were stationed to the 
drag-ropes of the field-pieces of the artillery. The Eng- 
lish, of course, had charge of the guns. All being ready 
for the onset, a signal was given, by the discharge of a 
field-piece ; at which, by a preconcerted manoeuvre, the 
English infantry, closing in upon the Indians on all 
sides, seized, manacled, and confined them all as prison- 
ers of war.* 

Thus, at Cocheco, were assembled the Wamesits, the 
Penacooks, the Ossipees, Pequawkets, and others, all at 
the pretended peace-making beck of the English ; and 
were under the benign protection, as they thought, of 
the peaceful Wonalancet, and of Eliot's Christian civil- 
ization. But, alas ! they were all prisoners. 

Then and there, without a trial, they were separated, 
the peaceable from the perfidious. About two hundred 
of them with Wonalancet, then thought to be harmless, 
were released. The other two hundred, being suspected 
of evil intent, were marched or boated away to Boston. 



* Hubbard, historian of that day, complacently says : 4 4 They were hand- 
somely surprised, without the loss of any person's life, to the number of 
400 Indians." Drake, B. Ill, pp. 96, 97. 



72 JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 

Seven or eight of them were hanged as supposed mur- 
derers ; some of them were sent to other parts ; some of 
them sold into slavery . # 



PETITION OF JOHN ELIOT AGAINST THE SALE OF INDIANS. 
To the Hon. Gov. and Council , sitting at Boston, this 13th of the 6th, 1676, 
The Humble Petition of John Eliot Sheweth : 

That the terror of selling away such Indians unto the Islands for perpetual 
slaves, who shall yield up themselves to your mercy, is like to be an effectual 
prolongation of the war, and such an exasperation of them, as may produce 
we know not what evil consequences upon all the land. 

Christ hath said, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. 
This usage of them is worse than death. The design of Christ in these last 
days is not to extirpate nations, but to gospelize them. His sovreign hand 
and grace hath brought the gospel into these dark places of the earth. 
When we came we declared to the world (and it is recorded) yea, we are 
engaged by our Letters Patent from the King's Majesty, — that the endeavour 
of the Indians' conversion, not their extirpation, was one great end of our 
enterprise in coming to these ends of the earth. The Lord hath so succeeded 
that wprk as that, by his grace, they have the Holy Scriptures, and sundry 
of themselves able to teach their countrymen the good knowledge of God. 
And however some of them have refused to receive the gospel, and now are 
incensed in their spirits unto a war against the English, yet I doubt not that 
the meaning of Christ is to open a door for the free passage of the gospel 
among them. 

My humble request is, that you would follow Christ's design in this 
matter, to promote the free passage of religion among them, and not destroy 
them. 

To sell souls for money seemeth to me a dangerous merchandise. To sell 
them away from all means of grace, when Christ has provided means of 
grace for them, is the way for us to be active in the destroying their souls. 
Deut. xxiii, 15, 16, a fugitive servant from a pagan master might not be 
delivered to his master, but be kept in Israel for the good of his soul; — how 
much less lawful to sell away souls from under the light of the gospel into a 
condition where their souls will be utterly lost, so far as appeareth unto man. 

All men of reading condemn the Spaniard for cruelty upon this point, in 
destroying men, and depopulating the land. The country is large enough; 



* Drake's Amer. Indians, Book III, pp. 81-83. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



73 



The Squaw. 

We, as well as Eliot, have reason also to lament the 
dealings of the desperadoes of our white race with the 
squaw sachem of Saconet.* 

' Prior to the death of Philip, a proclamation had been 
made, which called upon all his adherents to come in, giv- 
ing them to understand, that they, in that case, should 
be dealt with mercifully. Thereupon, this squaw sachem, 
an ally of Philip, having first sent three messengers to 
the governor of Plymouth, suing for life, promising, 
under that proclamation, submission ; and accordingly 
surrendered herself and tribes to Major Bradford. 

But, sad to tell ! they were slain, the entire* one hun- 
dred and ten, that very day. Well might the Apostle 
expostulate. 

Great God, forgive our Saxon race, 
Blot from thy Book, no more to trace 

Fraternal wrath infernal ! 
That taints the atmosphere we breathe, 
The sky above and earth beneath, 

With dearth and death eternal ! f 



— here is land enough for them and us too. Prov. xiv, 28. In the multitude 
of people is the King's honor. 

It will he much to the glory of Christ to have many brought in to worship 
his great name. 

I desire the Honored Council to pardon my boldness, and let the case of 
conscience be discussed orderly, before the King be asked. Cover«my 
weakness, and weigh the reason and religion that laborethinthis great case 
of conscience. 

Johx Eliot." 

About three months subsequently, seven Indians were sold ["to be 
transported to any place out of this continent "], by the Treasurer of the 
Colony. See Genealogy of Eliot Family, pp. 133, 134. 

* Drake's Amer. Indians, Book II, p. 40. 
t Eroni my Epics, etc., p. 167. 

10 



CHAPTER V. 



Extermination. 

This was avowed as well on the one side as on the 
other. And at the hands of desperadoes, the natives, 
in various ways, were constantly being crowded, to the 
end of their lives. Provoked variously, to madness and 
desperation, they fought, some against their own race, 
some against the English settlers ; and, as Cowper hath, 
in truth, said, " the brands rusted in their bony hands." 

In view of all this, it is much to be deplored that the 
unbiased historian, aside from Eliot's influence, has 
never been able to see any material difference between 
the so-called civilization of that day of trial, and native 
savage barbarism itself, as evinced by desperadoes on 
the one side and on the other. 

So it was at 

Wamesit. 

In 1675, the Indians (Oct. 27 and ISTov. 4) had been 
provoked by English desperadoes, who had repeatedly 
fired upon them, at Chelmsford and elsewhere, upon 
suspicion that the Wamesits had been guilty of burning 
a barn, by and for which some of the natives had been 
killed.^ Being thus indiscriminately accused and injured 



* Francis' Life of Eliot, pp. 279, 280. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



75 



as barn-burners, it of course came to pass that the 
"Wamesits, combining against the settlers in this locality, 
by reason of these aggressions long and often repeated, 
crossed the Merrimac in their canoes, and, falling in 
upon the English settlers on the north side of the river, 
near where the old garrison-house still stands (1880), — 
raising their fearful war-whoop cry, and burning down 
three dwelling-houses, one or more of which belonged to 
Edward Colburn and Samuel Varnum; said Colburn and 
others were shot at, and pursued by the Indians (forty 
in number) ; and while upon the river, in attempting to 
cross it, the two sons of Varnum in the conflict were 
slain. It was March 18, 1676. And on the 15th of 
April, then next, fourteen or fifteen English cottages in 
this vicinity were consumed. 

Moral. 

From all this, we may clearly see how great a matter 
a little fire may kindle; indeed, how those, who unwisely 
take the sword, may perish by it; and above all, how 
wise it shall be to learn of Eliot, bearing, forbearing, and 
forgiving, advancing valiantly onward, following peace 
with the world under God's great golden rule, as he did. 

Old Men and Women. 

As Philip's war progressed, the "Wamesits at one time 
went away, deserting the station, leaving only some few 
old men and women here, too old to get away. # Sad 
to relate, soon after the young Indians left, their wigwams 
at night w^ere set fire to, and all those that remained 



* Sketch of the Life of Eliot, pp. 15, 16. 



76 



JOHK ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



perished. Their ashes, no doubt, are somewhere in this 
ground on which we tread.* 

Philip's Force. 

For a considerable time he appeared to be strong and 
invincible. And yet that light and love, which by the 
Apostle had been diffused among the tribes, tended 
greatly to delay and dishearten a savage warfare. 

But for this, the war would have been longer, and if 
possible more terrible ; but for this, the general mass of 
natives would have gone over to King Philip. And in 
that event, the English settlers would have been most 
likely driven out, if not entirely exterminated. Eliot's 
mission to evangelize the Indian nations, although it 
fell short of his grand purpose, politically, as we have 
seen, it saved the white settler of New England, — serving, 
as it did, to concentrate a balance of j>ower towards 
civilization and economical progress. 

All the way, 'neath the war-cloud or otherwise, Eliot's 
constant prayer was for peace. So it was in the 
Missakonog troubles, which he so nobly averted and 
prevented. It was so in 1669, when the Massachusetts 
Indians made a six-years' war against the Mohawks. In 
that contest, along the borders of New York, seven 
hundred Indians, against the prayerful entreaties of 
Eliot, waged war in that wilderness, and more than 
half of them perished in the fight, f All this, and 
more, the Apostle had foreseen, and had raised his 
voice against it. 



* Drake's American Indian Wars, B. II, p. 117. 
t Drake, B. II, p. 45. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



77 



Malicious Men. 

Conflicts with the natives were got up, not by the 
masses, on the one side or the other, but, through 
occasional depreciations, the kindling embers of anger 
from time to time were fanned forth to furious flames. 
And although terrible scenes of war and blood had 
transpired,-beclouding and hedging up the pathway of 
the Apostle, in the killing of his educated ministers and 
teachers, ancfMn the distraction or destruction of his 
Christian churches and people of his care, Eliot still 
survived, — yet he mourned, bereaved, and what follows. 

They thence, advance 'mid oft-recurring strife, 
Through conflicts desperate kindled into life, 
By hate implacable still lingering long, 
Avenging Philip's death ; and flagrant wrong, 
Remembered, well, encroachments rash, designed, 
Repeated oft, as self had long inclined 
The natives here. But through the lapse of time, 
Whence wayward hearts to better faith incline, 
Whence discord wanes away, — then Truth began 
To shed with light the vagrant paths of man ; 
Distracted foes their errors soon discern, 
And back to reason once again return. 
Then Peace, that welcome harbinger of health, 
Of generous thrift, foreshadowing weal and wealth, 
Brings her glad-tidings down, and cheers the land, 
With prompt good-will and noble deeds at hand, 
To heal the broken heart, to make amends 
For wilful waste, which from the past descends. 

Thence this fair vale, from mountain to the main, 
In vernal grandeur buds to bloom again ; 
And plenteous harvest, with her golden ears, 
Crowning the prudence of progressive years, 
Adorns the field, and grace triuniphant gives 



78 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



To honest toil. Here Wonalancet lives, 

Unscathed by war, a sachem wise and true, 

Of fragment tribes still roving far and few, 

Along these banks, where Penacook had stood 

Por countless years, through tempest, storm, and flood ; 

And farther seaward where Wamesit lies, 

Still well entrenched, a wigwam city thrives ; 

Rightly reserved, the home of hunters here, 

A fort within and habitations clear 

To friendly red-men. While from dearth released, 

Prom scourge of conflict, and in strength4ncreased, 

Through many a favored year the Pilgrim mind, 

By faith and works religious freedom Unci : 

Such as the fathers sought and had foretold 

Should come, in grace abounding as of old.* 

In that dread war, the Apostle had followed his 
disciples, his ministers, his teachers, his printers, his in- 
terpreters, and other brethren to their places of im- 
prisonment, at the pines on Charles River, as they were 
boated away ; and at Deer Island and other places, while 
held imprisoned and in chains; and although powerless to 
rescue them, his kind, discreet voice, everywhere and to 
all, administered comfort, encouragement, and consola- 
tion.! 

And when, at Philip's death, the rancor of war seemed 
to subside, the Apostle again advanced, not as before, but 
as well as he could. On foot — in the forest, preaching, 
and trying to re-establish his former missionary stations ; 
advancing, sometimes through torrents of rain, storms 
of hail, or drifts of snow ; and sometimes, for days to- 
gether, without a dry thread in his garments. 



* From my Epics, Lyrics, and Ballads, p. 346. 
t Dearborn's Sketch of Eliot's Life, pp. 14-17. 
p. 36. Francis' Life of Eliot, pp. 277, 278. 



Bigelow's Hist, of Natick, 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



79 



Eliot at Nashua. 

At one time, in the summer of 1652, he had started 
from Roxbury, to preach to the tribes at Nashua, some 
sixty miles away, as then reckoned. But while on the 
journey, a notice reached him of a conflict up there 
among the Indians, that might endanger his own life. 
Thereupon, for a day or two, he halted, turned aside, and 
waited. 

The old chief at Nashua, hearing of this, at once 
organized an armed force of twenty Indian warriors, 
headed them himself, and bounding through the forest, 
surrounded their old Apostle, safely escorted him 
through, with gallant honors, to the place of his appoint- 
ment, — thus they honored him, that he might preach 
to their waiting, assembled people.* 

His Many Friends. 

His Christians, those that had already been driven out 
from their native soil, those that had perished in the 
fight, or otherwise had been slain, or had died of disease 
or starvation during the conflicts, including those whom 
he, in his long life, had parted with at the common 
grave, had been thousands. 

Yet he had consolation, that amid all the trials of 
earth, he had constantly borne to the breeze that gospel 
banner of righteousness, beautifully inscribed, " Love to 
God ! Peace on earth, and good-will towards men." 



* Drake's Hist. Amer. Indians, Book III, p. 85. 



80 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Testimonials. 

Richard Baxter, the great author and scholar, in 1691, 
upon his death-bed in England, declared, among other 
sayings, " There was no man I honored above John Eliot. 
. . . I hope as he did ; it i$ for his evangelical succes- 
sion that I plead." 

Shepard, one of his coternporaries, then minister at 
Cambridge, while the Puritan settlers were trembling 
(in the war) for the fate of New England, exhorting his 
people to take courage, declared, that "the Country could 
never perish, so long as John Eliot lived." 

Cotton Mather, speaking of Eliot's eloquence, says : 
"He would sound the trumpet of God against all vice, 
with a most penetrating liveliness, and make his pulpit 
another Mount Sinai, for the flashes of lightning therein 
displayed against the breaches of the law, given from 
that burning mountain." * 

Edward Everett, in his oration at Bloody Brook, an- 
nounced his belief, that " since the death of St. Paul, a 
nobler, a truer, a warmer spirit than John Eliot never 
lived." f 

But what need have we for witnesses? 

John Eliot is known of all New England ; and 
although his translations of the Bible and other books, 
into the Indian language, have become as a dead 
letter; and his Indian nations, whom he tried to save, 
were nearly destroyed, their descendants, being now 
unknown, and unheard of, save in some distant prairie 
or wilderness, still wandering afar off, few and far 
between. 



* Life of John Eliot, p. 9. 



t Hist, of Natick, ch. 2, p. 12. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



81 



'T is sad to tell how the Indian fell, 
How the storm had swept the deck, 

How the tribes of yore, all dashed ashore, 
The craft became a wreck ! 

Bright stars shall burn, and seasons turn 

Their sunny sides forever ; 
But ne'er to change, that mountain range 

Again shall know them never. 

True, true they say, there's a better day, 

And faith, we ought to find it ! 
Tor the lights of love, that burn above, 

Are lit for man to mind it.* 

Eliot's Adherents. 

Prior to the war, he had at his call many whom he had 
schooled for the Indian ministry, as teachers, as printers, 
as interpreters, proof-readers, etc., as we have seen; and 
who had aided him in his vast undertaking to civilize 
and evangelize the Indian nations. But first and last, 
and not least, among those who contributed to that great 
cause, there was a lady, diligent, circumspect, duteous. 

Anna Mountfort ELiOT.f 

Their acquaintance had commenced in England ; and 
after Eliot had been in Boston about a year, the cry, 
" Come over and help us," or some other cry, had reached 
the ear of Anna Mountfort. At once she made haste 
for the hazardous sea-voyage. Ah ! how the gallant valor 
of that girl of the olden time looms up to our frail 
imagination ! 



* From my Epics, Lyrics, and Ballads, pp. 191-195. 
f Genealogy of Eliot Family, pp. 44, 55. 



11 



82 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Beyond the seas, I seem to see her there, at early morn, 
about to sever herself from the mates of her childhood 
and from kindred ties ; there, at the dear old threshold 
of home ; there, as she takes leave of a trembling, tearful 
old mother, the sister, or the brother, with that last sad 
good-by, which never on earth, orally, was to be 
repeated. 

Thence, through her truth and love to John Eliot, she 
dares the dangers of the high seas ; and three thousand 
miles away from all else dear to her, in 1632 lands in the 
New World, at Boston. 

And such a girl ! I '11 tell you true, — once here, it did 
not take her long to find her John's tenement, or the 
place of the parsonage. She had come here, bearing 
woman's olive-branch of peace and love. She had come, 
not to encumber, not to embarrass ; not as a worthless, 
heartless image, embracing a bill of expense. No — she 
had come to help John, — had come to his field of honest 
labor. She had come to this wilderness, equipped and 
fortified with that force and power which no man on 
earth ever had, to wit, the transcendent power of 
woman's peaceful, faithful love ! She had come to follow 
the leadership of the husband, and to advance to that 
sj)here and vocation which the great God, in his wise 
economy, hath pointed out to all women. 

Thus armed, thus endowed, with the power of woman's 
unfaltering, faithful love, that lady, just then married, 
was ready for duty, — ready, if need be, to enter the 
wild forest with her dear John, and to help him to fell 
the trees, and to gather together the bark and the boughs, 
and to build the wigwam. 



JOHN" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



83 



Her First Work. 

In the beginning, she busied herself, among other 
duties, in acquiring a knowledge of medicine and medical 
practice. But this, too, without hinderance, or inter- 
ference with the cares of the household. So that, when 
disease, contagious or otherwise, came to the white-man 
or to the red-man, there she stood, by the side of John 
Eliot, a healing hand, holding an antidote for every 
languishing heart, a balm for every wound. 

It was thus from the day of her marriage, that Anna 
Eliot became the leading exemplary spirit, in advance of 
those brave old New England mothers, who followed her 
in succession ; the equals of whom, for valor, for frugal 
industry, for endurance, for truthfulness, and for a valiant 
faith in their God, the history of the world hath never 
known. 

Thus this primeval leader of the wives of our fathers 
began ; and thus she advanced, to the highest honors of 
life, and to a glorious immortality. All the way along, 
through a connubial life of more than half a century, — 
in the forest, in the field, in peace, and in dread war, — 
she had filled well her place, — a wife, a Christian 
pioneer, as well as a companion. 

With truth, and trust, and patient pride, 
At morn, at noon, or even-tide, 

She calmed the cloudy hour ; 
Her heart was full of love and song, 
She cheered her Eliot all along, 

She brought him many a flower. f 



* Life of Eliot, p. 269. Eliot Genealogy, pp. 44, 45, 48. 
f From my Epics, Lyrics s and BaUads, p. 160. 



84 



JOHiST ELIOT, THE APOSTLE* 



Her Death. 

We have seen how the girl had left the home of her 
childhood, and father and mother and friends, in the 
far-off England; and now that lady, after the lapse of 
more than fifty years, crowned with the plaudits of 
"well done," takes leave of earth itself, in presence 
of the Evangelist in tears ; animated by that true faith 
in God which had led them onward together through the 
wilderness triumphantly, that exemplary heroic spirit 
fled away. 

And when kind friends and neighbors had come to the 
threshold of a lonely home, the Apostle, rising, covered 
with the frosts of more than fourscore winters, and calling 
them to the casket, said, "Here lies my dear, faithful, 
pious, prudent, and prayerful w^ife." 

0, what a God-given commentary ! 

And now the funeral obsequies are performed, "the 
long procession passes by," and the earth overshadows 
the mortal remains of Anna Eliot. 

It was a new tomb, consecrated and reserved to her, 
as its first inhabitant, by the gallant people of old Rox- 
bury.* It was a tribute to fervent faithfulness and to 
the insignia of truth. Yet cold, too cold, as best they 
could make it, was such a new tomb for so warm a 
heart. 

Eliot ? s Charity. 

Thereafterwards the Apostle, for the want of strength, 
could preach but little. He had arrived at the last three 



* Eliot, Ge*. History, p. 53. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



85 



years of his life. Knowing that Roxbury had been sup- 
porting two ministers, to make his own labors less, he 
appeared before its committee, and seeking permission 
to relinquish his salary, said, "I do here give up my 
salary to the Lord ; and now, brethren, you may fix that 
upon any man that God shall make a pastor." * 

But his confiding society said, no ! They said it be- 
cause they loved him, and because they knew that his 
venerable presence in their midst was by far of more 
value than any salary. 

One day, the parish treasurer had paid him some 
money, and fearing he would give it away before he 
reached home, he tied it up in a handkerchief, closing it 
in with the hardest knots he could make. 

The Apostle started homeward, and on the way he 
turned into the cottage of a good woman in poverty. 
Perceiving her penniless condition, he said, " Oh ! I have 
brought some relief to you." And he tried to untie the 
knots, and could n't do it. At length, passing it to the 
poor woman, he said, "Take it; I believe the Lord de- 
signs it all for you." f 

* His Manners. 

Hearing one of his ministry complaining of others, by 
reason of some unexpected coldness and ill-treatment, 
Eliot replied, "Brother, learn the meaning of these three 
little words : bear, forbear, and forgive ! " 

He had students ; some of them, inclining to stupidity, 
did not rise early. " I pray you," said Eliot, " see to it 
that you be morning birds ! " 



* Sketch of Eliot's Life, pp. 20, 22, 24. t Life of Eliot, p. 12. 



86 



JOH^ ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



Cotton Mather says, his manner of preaching was 
powerful, yet plain ; that " his delivery was graceful ; that 
at times his voice rose into great warmth and energy." 

In his old age, while, of a Sabbath morning, an attend- 
ant was leading him up the hill to his church, " Ah ! " 
said the Apostle, " this is very much like the road to 
heaven, — it is up-hill." 

His Departure. 

At length, on his long anticipated death-bed, while the 
sands of life were beginning to fall, a friend approaches 
him, in kindness making an inquiry. " Alas ! " said Eliot, 
"I have lost everything, — my understanding leaves me, 
my memory leaves me; but, thank God, my charity 
holds out still." 

Then, at a later hour, another of his ministry called, 
sympathetically. At the first sight of his friend, he 
whispered, "You are welcome to my very soul. Pray 
retire into my study for me, and give me leave 
to be gone." Of course the friend retired. Soon then, 
obtaining leave to be gone, the noble triumphant spirit 
of John Eliot vanished into thin air, beyond the clouds. 
Its last rays, like the rays of the beautiful sunset/ shoot- 
ing upward, thence beamed backward on this world of 
ours. 

The very stars of heaven, at this moment, are typical, 
— just as if, bespeaking, they were- still transfusing that 
evangelical light and love, which was first diffused here 
by the Evangelist, to the heathen nations of New Eng- 
land. 



* Memoirs of Eliot, pp. 150, 151. Adams' Life of Eliot, p. 275. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



87 



The tones of his voice, audible everywhere, are still 
rising above the ordinary whispers of a sainted soul. 
In it there is no uncertain sound. It comes to us, 
like the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "prepare 
ye the way of the Lord," and make your paths straight. 

From the very walls of your churches that same apos- 
tolic acclaim hath reverberated, for more than two hun- 
dred years. It is still here. The voice of the Evan- 
gelist still whispers to the young man, to the maiden, 
and to the little ones, — in the Sabbath school, at the 
fire-side, and at the family altar. Known of all men, 
the very name of the Apostle is glorious. Plainly it is 
known, at the distance of two centuries, as if it had for- 
ever been engraved upon the New England door-post, — 
known universally, as if from canvas it had swung upon 
the guide-post in all the highways of the land. 

So it is, that New England still profits by the far- 
seeing leadership of John Eliot, by his apostolic plans, 
purposes, precepts, and examples, w T hich have come 
down to us full 'of light, transfusing the primeval true 
lessons of life. Everywhere, spiritually, his Evangelical 
hand, far extended, is still writing upon the wall. It 
is an index, true, faithful, and profitable, serving to 
point the generations onward and upward, to that 
great 

City Above Us, 

Where the saints and the angels, with banners unfurled, 

Chant holy hosannas to the God of the world ; 

Up there, where the fields, bright beaming, are proud, 

Like the tints, 'mid the rain-drops, of the bow in the cloud ; 

Where the lakes and the rivers pure silver unfold, 

And the rocks of the mountains are garnished of gold. 



88 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



There, sweeter than morn, in the glory of spring, 
The lily waves wide and the wild warblers sing ; 
From the farthest fixed star, as ye see it bright burning, 
Around which the spheres, vast, eternal are turning ; 
Where did the great maker stand forth from his throne, 
When he framed the creation, and called it his own ; — * 

There, there may you find the great New England 
evangelical pioneer, amid throngs of the blest, in robes 
of living light, and in the joys of his God. 

Earth's Conflict. 

This with the Evangelist was long and arduous. But 
now (1690) it hath come to an end. Not so with the 
Indian churches which he left living, of whom Cotton 
Mather says : " There were [then] six churches of 
baptized Indians in New England, and eighteen assem- 
blies of catechumens professing the name of Christ. 
Of the Indians, there are four-and-twenty preachers; 
and besides these there are four English ministers, 
who preach the gospel in the Indian tongue." 

It is sad to say that these, partly through the infirmity 
of membership, partly for want of constant ministerial 
support, and mostly by reason of depredations and ill- 
usage from many of the English settlers constantly 
crowding, were finally driven to distraction and to 
desperate ends. 

Yet, as against all this, the Natick Indian church, after 
Eliot's demise, for many years maintained its town 
organization, until at length it became greatly diminished 
in population ; and finally, by an Act of the legislature 



* From my Epics, Lyrics, and Ballads, p. 18. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



89 



it yielded its entire organization to the English. So 
that, in 1792, there were in Natick but one Indian 
"family of five persons and two single women." * 

And then, with all the rest of the New England en- 
feebled tribes disorganized, one after another, they 
wandered farther back into the wilderness, and thence 
vanished away to the ends of the earth. 

During all these intervening years, from the death of 
the Apostle, murders and wars and conflicts of every 
description, with but brief interventions of peace, had 
ensued, many of which were terrible. For instance, as 
late as 1777, transpired th& capture and murder of a 
young lady, * 

Jane McCrea (Lucinda). 

Thus it happened, that by reason of aggressions on the 
part of the English soldiery (the contest for the native 
soil not being then quite ended), a small tribe, skulking 
about the camp of Jones, a young English captain, where 
Jane, his betrothed, was briefly making a visit, seized her 
there and dragging her by the arms and hair, mounted 
her upon a horse, and hurried her back into the dense 
wilderness. The captainf missing the girl, at once dis- 
j>atched two friendly Indians to pursue and obtain and 
bring back to him his dearest lost prize ; then, hastening 
himself to another trail, he also pursued the tribe. Now, 
as appears, the Indians had obtained the young lady, but 
upon a dispute between themselves as to which should 
present her to the captain, and obtain a barrel of rum 
which had been offered for her return, they in the affray 



* Memoirs of Eliot, p. 120. 

12 



90 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



struck her down with a tomahawk. The captain at that 
moment appearing in sight, and hearing the shriek of the 
dying girl, fell upon the two Indians, and they also were 
both slain at his hands. This was near the banks of the 
Hudson. 

These are facts which tend to show how carnal weapons, 
even at that late day, were still used. How at the hands 
of desperadoes, seeking neither Christianity nor civili- 
zation, the earth was still being stained with the blood of 
mortals. This incident was long ago poetized by 
Barlow, and an extract is deemed appropriate. 

" Lucinda's fate ! The tale ye nations hear, 
Eternal ages trace it with a tear. 

" He hurries to his tent. Oh! rage! despair! 
No glimpse, no tidings of the frantic fair, 
Save that some car-men, as a-camp they drove, 
Had seen her coursing for the western grove. 
Faint with fatigue, and choked with burning thirst, 
Forth from his friends with bounding leap he bursts; 
Vaults o'er the palisade with eyes aflame, 
And fills the welkin with Lucinda's name! 

" The fair one, too, with every aid forlorn, 
Had raved and wandered, ti\\ officious morn 
Awaked the Mohawks from their short repose, 
To glean the plunder ere their comrades rose. 

" Two Mohawks met the maid, — historian, hold! 
She starts, with eyes upturned, and fleeting breath, — 
In their raised axes views her instant death. 
Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she passed, 
Rolls in loose tangle round her lovely waist ; 

With calculating pause and demon grin, 

They seize her hands, and through her face divine 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



91 



Drive the descending axe ! the shriek she sent 
Attained her lover's ear ! — he thither bent 
With all the speed his wearied limbs could yield, 
Whirled his keen blade, and stretched upon the field 
- The yelling fiends ; who there, disputing (stood) 
Her gory scalp, their horrid prize of blood ! 
He sunk delirious on her lifeless clay, 
And passed, in starts of sense, the dreadful day." * 

Still, true it Proved, 

that after the Indian conflicts in New England, which 
had brought terror and dismay to our Pilgrim and 
Puritan settlers for more than half a century from the 
death of the Apostle, yet never forgetting him, the 
Indians, withdrawing from their rivers and ponds and 
from their hunting and trapping grounds, gradually 
disappeared. In their departure they left behind them, 
not the ruins of desolated cities nor lofty castles, but the 
same old wilderness, for the most part dense and dark as 
ever, and now and then on the banks of rivers and on 
the lake and ocean shores they accidentally left many a 
sample of their bows and arrows, their chisels, their 
tomahawks, and their mortars made of stone. Still, on 
the north, from the beautiful Lake Winnipesaugee in New 
Hampshire, one that may be called the last lone tribe, 
wandering, hunting, still lingered in that dense wilderness. 
Its great chief was the warlike, devil-daring 

CHOCORTJA.f 

He was the last of the Pequawkets ! Oh, what clusters 
of incidents, terrible in their impressions, seem to rally 
around that gallant but cruel historic name. Prior to the 



* Drake's Amer, Ind., B. Ill, p. 101. f Pronounced Cheh-corrua. 



92 



JOHN" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



year 1766, and for years perhaps up to that time, this 
great chief had hunted that old forest, of which the town 
of Burton had become the centre, and in which that 
lofty mountain which still bears Chocorua's name now 
stands, as it hath stood from the Creation. This moun- 
tain historic hath ever been known and visited for its 
tragical history, as well as for its scenery and the 
beautiful landscapes that adorn it, near to it and in the 
distance towards the great lake, towards the lofty white 
mountain-peaks and far away to the high seas. 

This old chief had a family. His squaw died, and 
was buried (beneath a log structure, after the manner of 
some of the tribes) by the brook-side where he had first 
found her. 

He had a small Indian boy, his son, who, after the death 
of the mother, continued daily to tag after his father, 
the chief, in his ramblings and huntings in the 
wilderness. 

At length, one day, as it happened, while at the 
cottage of one Campbell, a white settler, the boy got 
poisoned, and, returning home to the wigwam, soon died.* 
Chocorua averred that the white-man poisoned the boy 
purposely. Afterwards, one day, when the father of the 
family had left home, returning % at night, he found the 
wife and children of his house all murdered. After 
burying the dead, the white settlers followed Chocorua 
to the same mountain which still bears his name, in Bur- 
ton (now Albany, N. H.). They there discovered the 
chief on the mountain cliff, at its highest pinnacle, and, 
commanding him to jump off, " Ah," said he, "the great 
Spirit gave Chocorua his life, and he'll not throw it 



* See Legend by L. Maria Child. 



JOHIS" ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 93 

away at the bidding of the white-man." At this, Camp- 
bell shot him; and, while dying, he, with doleful, husky 
exclamation, pronounced awful curses upon the English. 

From that. day to this, the want of vegetation in that 
mountain, all its deaths, and all the diseases upon the 
cattle and upon the inhabitants of that region, have been 
attributed to that " dread curse of Chocorua." # 

Not many years since, on a hunting excursion to the 
New England mountains, we encamped beneath the brow 
of Chocorua over-night, and in a trance fell into the 
following 

Soliloquy. 

The tired hounds at length are sleeping, 
And over our tent, wild night is weeping 

Dark dews in the Burton wood ; 
While from her distant radiant fountain, 
The queenly moon lights up the mountain 

Where brave Chocorua stood. 

To this the ills of earth had brought him, 

'T was here the white-man sought and fought him, 

In daring, dashing numbers ; 
From whence despair had deigned to dwell, 
Chocorua, wounded, faltering fell, 

And here in death he slumbers. 

Entranced beneath thy cragged peak, 
Creation vast! — thy summit bleak, 

Thy varied vales I ponder ; 
I reverence Him who shaped the hills, 
These silvery lakes, those glittering rills, 

Wild, in a world of wonder. 



* Drake's Amer, Ind., B. Ill, p. 101. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 

Up 'neath the stars, yon glimmering slope, 
Piled range on range, they fill the scope 

Of man's enchanted vision ; 
Bold there above a heaving sea, 
For aye to vie in majesty, 

Earth's grandest, proud position ! 

Life and its joys Chocorua sought, 
His tribe he trained, as nature taught, 

Mild in these magic mountains ; 
With bow and arrow known of yore, 
Vast wood-lands, wild, he hunted o'er, 

Dame fed him at her fountains. 

Of what wild waters yield in view, 
Chocorua launched his light canoe 

On many a rapid river ; 
Fierce falcons faltered in the air, 
And the wild-deer bounded from his lair 

At the rattle of his quiver. 

From boyhood brave, a priest he roved ; 
Faithful at heart, he ferveut loved 

Keoka, ne'er to sever ; 
No happier pair could earth produce, 
Keoka true — and a proud pappoose 

Inspired that wigwam ever. 

With truth and trust, and patient pride, 
At morn, at noon, or eventide, 

She calmed the cloudy hour ; . 
Her heart was full of love and song, 
She cheered Chocorua's life along, 

She brought him many a flower. 

Such was the life Chocorua sought, 
Such were the charms Keoka brought, 

Unselfish, unpretending ; 
Kings of the earth, I 'd envy not, 
Give me to know Chocorua's lot, 

Such faith, such favor blending I 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



95 



Soon then, alas ! sad fatal years, 
That moved heroic hearts to tears, 

Fell heavy on Peqnawket ; 
Dread death, that brought Keoka blind, 
Had mazed Chocorua in his mind, 

The tribes began to talk it. 

Of rushes rude they made her shroud, 
In crooked farm a casket proud, 

And laid her in the wild-wood, 
Beside a rippling river shore, 
Where many a song and dance of yore 

Had cheered her happy childhood. 

Six logs laid high on either side, 
Embraced they hold that sacred bride, 

With a rail-made roof around her ; 
Deep calm at rest, devoid of fears, 
Of loves, of hopes, or tender tears, 

Where first Chocorua found her, 

A white flag fluttered in the air, 

Sweet stars from heaven glittered there, 

And the zephyrs came to love her ; 
Deep wood-lands whispered sighs unknown, 
The plaintive pines their loss bemoan, 

And the wild rose creeps above her. 

Ten times a day Chocorua wept ; 
Ten times a day his shadow swept 

In plumy form around her : 
The partridge fluttered from his trail, 
And the she-wolf nightly heard his wail, 

To a troubled trance it bound her. 

Where ? er he turned, where'er he roamed, 
Or when around the grave he mourned, 

There prompt and true to mind him, 
His little lad with lifted eye, 
As if to hail that mother nigh, 

Tripped on, and stood behind him. 



JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 

'T was thus Chocorua's heart was pressed ; 
Long months moved on, but gave no rest ; 

Sad thus, dread fate had made it; 
Still there is grief as yet unknown, 
" One trouble never comes alone," 

Our dear old mothers said it. 

Next then indeed, how true it proved ! 
Another fate as fortune moved 

Came cruel quite as t'other; 
By hidden drugs, in malice made, 
Alas ! the boy hath fallen dead, 

To moulder with his mother. 

Then wailed Chocorua wilder still, 
Without a heart, without a will, 

A ghost-like, lurking wonder ; 
Yet in his flesh there 's native fire, 
Though earth and hell in crime conspire, 

To drive the soul asunder. 

True, true the story oft is told, 
Chocorua hateful here of old 

Brought maledictions many ; — 
" Curse on yr white-man's soul ! " he prayed; 
" Curse on yr living and yr dead, 

Nor give him gospel any ! 

" Yr war-path let it lay in snares, 
Yr fields laid low of frost and tares, 

Yr pestilence supernal ; 
Of crime accursed, for aye to know 
Prompt penalties of pain and woe 

On all yr heads infernal. 

" Vile, heartless knaves ! ye killed ray boy, 
My own Keoka's darling joy ; — 

E'er in the grave she rested ; 
By deadly drugs laid low, he died, 
Me too, ye 've slain ! — let devils deride 

Ye, tortured, damned, detested. 



JOH^ ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 



" Ho ! let the war-whoop lead the fight, 
The torch, the tomahawk, at night, 

Yr habitations storming ! 
Drive deep the axe, the scalping blade, 
Spare never a white-man, child or maid, 

Give carnage to the morning ! 

" Great Spirit, let thy lightnings flash! 
Thy fiery vengeance, let it dash 

Down where the pale-face prowls ; 
On Campbell's head, on all he owns, 
Let panthers perch upon his bones 

While hot in h — 1 he howls ! " 

Thus prayed Chocorua, bleeding, slain; 
Vengeance from thence eternal came 

To a devastation certain ; 
Nay, ever since, from then to this, 
Not a breath of hope nor breeze of bliss 

Hath moved these woods of Burton. 

Veiled now in shadows stands the sun, 
The Indian hunter's day is done 

In these New England borders ; 
A baleful shaft his heart hath broken, 
Out from the cloud the fates betoken 

Unwonted strange disorders. 

Dread on that night and hitherto 
The heavens let fall malarious dew 

Far down these murky mountains ; 
Of all the flowers, not one is known ; 
The maple leaf is dry, half grown, 

And death is in the fountains. 

The moping owl hath ceased to hoot, 
The scrub-oak falters at the root, 

And the snail is lank and weary. 
The fated fawn hath found his bed ; 
Huge hawks, high-flying, drop down dead 

Above that apex dreary. 



JOHX ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. 

Faded, the vales no fruits adorn ; 
The hills are pale with poisoned corn ; 

The flocks are lean, repining ; 
No growth the panting pastures yield, 
And the staggering cattle roam the field 

Forlorn, in death declining. 

'T is thus we 're made the slaves of earthy 
Mope in miasmas, deep in dearth, 

Sacl, from some bad beginning; 
From cruelty to friend or foes, 
Our morbid pains or mental woes 

Prove but the pangs of sinning. 

High now a voice is in the air, 
As if Chocorua still were there 

With wood-nymphs wild attending. 
'T is heard far up the mountain-side, 
That plaint of earth's down-trodden tribe, 

Bleak with the zephyrs blending. 

Great God, forgive our Saxon race ! 
Blot from Thy book, no more to trace 

Fraternal wrath infernal, 
That taints the atmosphere we breathe, 
The sky above, and earth beneath, 

With dearth and death eternal ! 



Come, boys ! we '11 take our tents away 
To better vales. 'T is break of clay ; 

And the hounds are awake for duty. 
Blow, blow the horn ! A gracious sun 
Hath brought a brotherhood begun 

In life, in love, in beauty ! 



QX&bt+ W+) W#vk* 



THE MERKIMAC AND ITS INCIDENTS. Epic Poems. 
Boston : limes & Niles. 1865. 12mo. 80 pages. Illus- 
trated. Price, $2.00. 

Under four divisions or heads : First, Its creation. Sec- 
ond, Its landscape, disconnected with animal life, a mere 
wild extensive surface, over which, by force of gravitation, 
the water-shed of New England conducts its rains, gathered 
from the mist and cloud, down the vales one hundred and 
ten miles, — now through broad intervales, now down in 
dashiug waterfalls, and now variously rolling onward to a 
boundless ocean. Third, Its finny inhabitants, its animals, 
and its native Indian tribes. Fourth, Its English settlers, 
its peace and its wars, its founders of cities, arts and sciences, 
and the onward advance of civilization. 

"The Merrimac and Its Incidents. This is a finely printed book, 
and relates to subjects of peculiar interest to those who dwell on the 
banks of our noble and beautiful river. The poet recites, in harmonious 
numbers, the events which happened in this region in the early history of 
the country. Conspicuous among these are the captivity and rescue of 
Mrs. Duston. The verses celebrate her sufferings, her courage, and her 
deliverance. It is a fresh honor to the heroine of Haverhill. The bard 
pursues the narrative until he tells how she 

* Wandered through the wild, 
And Haverhill reached.' 



* And there they rest. There upward points to-day 
A monument of stone from Duston's clay. 
Her noble deeds are held in high renown, 
Sacred, like heirloom, in that ancient town ; 
And long as Merrimac's bright waters glide, 
Shall stand that mother's fame still by its side.' 
. . . The author of this poem is a distinguished lawyer of Lowell. He 
has rendered an important service, and one not at all likely to be at once 
remunerative to him. He has brought into fresh notice times and men who 
should not be forgotten, and embalmed their deeds and memories in verse 
which in this region may well be immortal."— From the Hon. Nathan W. 
Hazen, in the Essex Banner, Aug. 10, 1866. 

" Select Readings from Mr. Caverly's Poems, at Greenwood., 
The pastoral preludes on the organ did not more surely carry the listener 



CAVERLY' S {ROBT. B.) WORKS. 



out into the pure, intoxicating enjoyment of Nature, than did the musical 

beat of the speaker's words, as in his first and longest piece, he described 
the sights and sounds of primitive New England. As we listened, we 
thought it might not improperly be called a symphonic song, or poem of 
the creation,— there, was such comprehensive blending of varied melodies. 
We were taken back to the time when « the morning stars sang together'; 
and then, by the gradually more measured tread of the language, the 
worlds were launched, and the mountains reared their crests up to the 
stars. In majestic diction, the hills of New England were depicted. In 
the more flowing numbers that succeeded, we w r ere aware that the 
streamlets were born, and trickling, drew their silver line down the 
rocky slopes. Through the meadows meanders the peaceful river, 
gladdening herb and bird and man. The songs of the happy tenants of the 
air, and the sounds of many innocent and prosperous industries, are heard 
from every side. Then, in more constrained, almost impatient rhythm, is 
given the vivid picture of Nature in chains, but even the captive is benef- 
icent. No longer the sportive, rambling runlet, but now the giant Mer- 
rimac in the hands of the Philistines. The noise of a thousand wheels, the 
whirl of ton thousand spindles, and the clatter of looms, arc pictured in 
language fitly chosen to typify these active, gigantic, and incessant activi- 
ties. And then, like peace after strife, comes the melodious description 
of the gorgeous fabrics, more wonderful than any fairy legend, and by the 
rich, subdued spirit of content that fills the verse, we feel, without being 
told, that a state of society in which all amenities, graces, and charities 
flourish, is the purposed end of the magnificence and wealth of the crea- 
tion."— Rev. Austin S. Garver, in an article as found in a public journal 
of April, 1877. 

" Descriptive Scenes. Thoreau, Tracy, Walker, and Whittier have 
cast their garlands of praise upon the Merrimac. Mr. Cavcrly brings 
another, in the verse which Goldsmith used; and makes it evident that lie 
not only loves the busy current, but that he has also carefully examined the 
history of those inhabiting its banks, even to the remotest times." — From 
the New England Historic, Genealogical Register of 1867, p. 383. 

GENEALOGY OF THE CAVERLY FAMILY, from the 
year 1116 to the year 1880, made profitable and exempli- 
fied by many a Lesson of Life. Lowell, Mass. : George 
M. Elliott. 1880. Printed at the Vox Populi Office. 200 
pages. 12mo. Fully illustrated. 

" I have read with great pleasure the excellent oration of R. B. Caverly, 
Esq., before the Caverly family, and the interesting lineage of the race. 
I am thankful that he has been pleased to make such a fine contribution to 
our genealogical literature. The book is an honor to him, and to his kin- 
dred It is also highly creditable to the enterprising publishers I see 
not why our works on genealogy need be so dull and dry. The family cer- 
tainly is the home of poetry ; and all our brightest hopes, and happiest, pur- 
est thoughts concentre in it. Why, then, should works on the subject be so 
dull and stupid? This fine volume shows us they need not be. He has 
most happily interblended narrative, anecdote, poetry, picture, and coun- 
sel with his genealogy, and made almost a romance out of his material. 
He has put himself and his bright ideas into it, and taught us how such 
w r orks may and shouhl be written. The illustrations come in just right, 
and are very fine. I hope his book, so full of sprightly thoughts, and 
bearing marks of careful research on every page, will be appreciated by 
his kindred, and the public also. I shall place it amongst my choicest vol- 
umes, and frequently refer to it." — From the Rev. Elias Nason, the 
celebrated author. 



CAVERLY'S (ROBT. B.) WORKS. 



EPICS, LYRICS, AND BALLADS. A volume of 468 pages, 
comprising, with other poems, those included in volumes 
1 and 2, with copious historical notes thereto appended. 
Neatly printed on tinted paper, and beautifully illustrated. 
Price, S3. 00. 

" This book is elegantly written, tastefully illustrated, skilfully printed, 
and beautifully bound. I have perused the several pieces with keen 
and sympathetic pleasure, and I congratulate tue^iuthor on the advanced 
record he has made in 'beating the sweet tields of poetry.' Aside from 
the intrinsic merit of his muse, the local scenes and circumstances which 
he poetizes become a part of our own life and being; and thus, in 
reading him, we have the joy, not only of perusing tuneful numbers, 
but of seeing common things we know around us, as by an enchanter's 
wand, transfigured into beauty. So the poet lives, because he makes 
things live around him. Hence comes the dignity of the vocation." — 
From the Rev. Elias Mason, of North BUlerica, author of many books. 

" We have been permitted to glance at the proof-sheets of a new volume 
by Robert B. Caverly, Esq. Among others, the poem 4 Arlington ' is a 
tender, touching reverie, expressive of what occurred to him while 
standing upon the Potomac bridge between Washington and Arlington 
Heights, the one the great city of the living, the other of the dead; and 
what occurred to him on a walk from there, over and around "Arlington 
and back, in the shades of the evening, after Grant's inauguration. Here 
the poet wanders amid the desolated beauty of nature and the graves of 
the fallen heroes; and recounts in his finest style the touching and 
romantic history of the fallen hero, and the desolation of war. The 
volume contains copious notes, which assist the reader in recalling the 
historic incidents to which allusion is made in the poems. 'Arlington' 
appears to have been written on the day of the inauguration y and begins 
thus : — 

' Potomac rolls her fountains down 
Deep gliding 'neath the shades that crown 

My theme of contemplation ; 
While night begins to chase away 
The living throngs and proud display 
Of the great inauguration.' 
" While wandering towards the heights, he inquires the way. A portion 
of the answer is given thus : — 

• "Go back," he said, " and take the day; 
Untimely spectres haunt the way, 

When night lets fall her curtain ; 
There, where rebellion rose at first, 
Where slavery, doomed of God, was cursed, 

They strangely stroll, uncertain." ' 
" What can be more touchingly beautiful than the following: — 

• Half halting, 'mid the sainted throng, 
In the pebbled path I pass along, 

At the foot of the soldier sleeping; 
Life's noblest history, brief and brave, 
I trace it, lettered on the grave 
In careful, kindest keeping.' 
" And yet again we have a fine thought : — 

'Eternal frosts, with deadly blight, 
From the heavens above, fell down that night, 
When Lee took marching orders ; 



CA VERL Y'S (ROBT. B.) WORKS. 



Sweet fields no more could bloom to bear, 
Nor tender vine, with vintage rare, 
Had growth within these borders.* 
"Two quotations more, and we are done :— 

* Strangers, indeed ! but no less brave 
In bruDt of battle, there they gave 

Sweet life to treason's havoc; 
From bleakest, bloody fields they've come, 
Out from the shades of Old BulfRun, 

And down the Rappahannock. ... 
« How beauteous is the gateway here, 
That leads from earth to heaven, so near 

It meets my finite vision ; 
It spans the whirling spheres afar, 
The midnight moon, the shooting star, 
That lingers in transition.' " 
— From the Lowell {Courier) Star, Oct. 26, 1870. 

" Mr. Caverly's new Book. The poem which opens the volume, and 
gives it its name, was written to commemorate an event well known to 
our readers, when an eagle lighted on the Ladd and Whitney monument. 
The same eagle, as it is supposed, was shortly after captured 'in Litchfield, 
brought to Lowell, was purchased by subscription, and set free from the 
top of Carlcton Block, in the presence of thousands. Mr. Caverly takes 
this bird as the representative of his species, and calls for his experience, 
which the bird proceeds to give, from the pre-historic ages clown to his 
capture and liberation." — From the Lowell Courier, Oct. 28, 1870. 

" Mr. Caverly's Entertainment. The First Congregational Church 
was Avell filled last evening, to lkten to the readings by R. B. Caverly, Esq. 
Mr. Caverly's readings were all from his own Poems, giving a variety of 
style and sentiment, and affording an opportunity to judge of his versatil- 
ity of talent. He is particularly fond of dressing up the quaint legends of 
the aborigines in the language of poesy, and the Wigwam of Contoocook, 
and the Bride of Burton, were good examples of this work. There were 
not wanting, however, the lighter strains, as in the ' Voice of Spring,' and 
the 'Allegory' of the Squirrel, irresistibly reminding one of Wordsworth, 
though not exactly like him. 'The Golden Wedding' was in a humorous 
strain, after Saxe and Holmes, and caused a ripple of laughter to sweep 
over the audience as the pictures of the olden New England life were 
drawn. In those days, as Mr. Caverly said in his introduction, the long 
winter evenings were occupied in surprise parties and golden weddings. 
. . . Mr. Caverly's second volume of poems, in dainty dress, is now 
read} 7 , and will form a handsome holiday gift for those who desire to do 
honor to the poet of the Merrimac. The living voice and presence of the 
author are a great help in the enjoyment of his verses, but those who have 
been unable to hear him will find a fund of enjoyment in perusing the 
volumes at their leisure."— George A. Marden, Esq., Poet, and Propri- 
etor of the Lowell Courier, Oct. 26, 1871. 

HISTORY OF BARNSTEAD, from its first settlement in 1727, 
to 1872. Lowell, Mass. : Marden & Rowell. Commenced 
by Dr. J. P. Jewett, and after his decease, written, illus- 
trated, and published by Robt. B. Caverly, of the Massachu- 
setts (N. E.) Bar. Price, $2.00. 264 pages. 

" This is a book skilfully written, well printed, and finely illustrated. It 
will last much longer than ordinary books." — From the Vox Populi, 1872. 



CAVERLY'S (ROB T. E.) WORKS. 



POETICAL WORKS. Lowell, Mass. : Stone & Huse. 12mo. 

" Such is the title of an extremely neat and elegantly printed work, on 
heavy toned paper, through which fine steel engravings are strewed. 
Their contents prove that the prosaic details of Blackstone and Coke have 
not obliterated the poetic element from the author's mind; the rather, 
perhaps, have they acted as stimulants to its exercise. The most preten- 
tious poem in the book, as appears to us, is entitled the 'Bride of Burton,' 
which gives the legend of the death of Chocorua. The following lines we 
copy from it: — 

1 Entranced beneath thy cragged peak, 
Creation vast! thy summit bleak, 

Thy varied vales I ponder ; 
I reverence Him who shaped the hills, 
These silvery lakes, those glittering rills, 
Wild, in a world of wonder.' 

The other contents are ' Victory,' and a variety of patriotic, personal, 
and special poems. The execution of the work is commensurate with the 
merits of its contents." — From the Boston Traveller, 1872. 

" Portland, Sept. 17, 1872. 
" I am in receipt of beautiful and choice volumes of Mr. Caveiiy's Poetical 
works. ... I have read and examined them with interest, and find 
them filled with effusions that seem to carry me back to other scenes and 
other times. In them there is the freshness of the present mingling with 
the past in graceful measures that seem to touch the life and experience of 
the many. I shall keep these volumes carefully, and at times re-examine 
them with interest, wondering how they could bs prepared during the 
emergencies of a professional life. But wonders will never cease, and 
mysteries have no bounds."— From the Hon. Judge Joseph Howard, 
late of the Supreme Court of Maine. 

" Concord, N. H., Aug. 21, 1872. 
" E. S. Nutter, Esq. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt from you 
of a copy of Mr. Caverly's Poems, Vol. II, elegant in form, and beautiful 
in expression and sentiment, for which you have, sir, my sincere thanks." 
— From the Rev. Br. N. Bouton, late Historian of New Hampshire. 



HEROISM OF HANNAH DUSTON, together with the Indian 
Wars of New England, to which the History of the Duston 
Monument, and its unveiling, is appended. Elegantly illus- 
trated. Boston, Mass. : B. B. Russell & Co. Price, §2.00. 
12mo. 408 pages. 

"Mr. Caverly's historic and legendary works have heretofore been hon- 
ored with critical notices by London reviewers. We have now to notice a 
like compliment from another quarter. The Daily Review, of Edinburgh, 
devotes a column and morelo a notice of Mr. Caverly's work, the 'Hero- 
ism of Hannah Duston, together with the Indian wars of New England.' 
The writer's opinion of tins production is very plainly indicated in the 
concluding remark, that 'both Americans and English have to thank Mr. 
Caverly for his laborious and interesting resume of those old Indian wars." 
— From HON. Chauncey L. Knapp, of the Lowell Citizen of January, 1876. 



M It is a book of thrilling interest throughout." —Boston Transcript. 



CA VERL Y'S (ROBT. B.) WORKS. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Vol. I. The Eagle, Arling- 
ton, and Other Poems. Dover, N. H. : Freewill Baptist 
Printing Establishment. 1871. Illustrated and beautifully 
bound. Price, $2.00. 12mo. 166 pages. 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Vol. II. Bride of Burton, 
Victory, and Other Poems. Lowell, Mass. : Stone, Huse 
& Co. 1872. Well bound and beautifully illustrated. Price, 
$2.00. 12mo. 180 pages. 

" Mr. Caverly was introduced, and premised the reading of passages from 
'Arlington,' which led him to pen the poem. The greatest interest was 
exhibited by the audience, as he progressed in his recital of a walk he 
took among tho thousand mounds which mark the resting-places of fallen 
soldiers on the heights of Arlington; and while passing from his prologue, 
as he carried his listeners in fancy from Washington city, over the Poto- 
mac and up the heights, we could almost imagine we heard the solemn 
rustling of the trees, and could discern in the twilight the melancholy 
records of the battle. We could almost hear the stranger, whom the writer 
met at the outset, dissuade him from the visit by weird tales of ghosts and 
spectres; and we, in common with the whole audience, were forced into 
a smile by the reply : 

' Why care,' said I, 'for ghost or elf? 
How soon you '11 turn to one yourself, 
More worthy of your minding.' " 
— From Z. E. Stone, Esq., known as an eminent journalist, having been 
• present at the entertainment. 

" Mr. Cavekly's Poems. What I most of all admire in them is the 
patriotic spirit which animates them. In looking them over, the veteran 
soldier must live over again some of the most interesting periods of our 
national history, and in thought revisit some of the most remarkable 
places which our country has to show." — Wm. C. Bryant, Poet and 
Journalist. 

JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE. Lessons. With Historical 
Introduction. Boston, Mass. 1880. 12mo. 100 pages. 
Finely illustrated. 

" The elegant volume from the Vox press, on the Caverly family, having 
had a ready sale, the same author (Col. R. B. Caverly, of this city) is 
following it with a volume entitled ' Lessons of Law and Life, from John 
Eliot, the Apostle.' It opens with a sketch of the Eliots of England, down 
from the Norman conquest, among whom was that brave Sir John Eliot, 
who died in the Tower in 1032, a year after the Apostle's arrival here, and 
who was as much a voluntary martyr to liberty as any man who ever 
died, and is one whose life involves the main chapter of English and 
American freedom. The author, in delineating the life of the Apostle, 
interweaves the history of New England in a brief, forcible manner, and 
learnedly follows out the conclusions and deductions of the story. The 
book is to be in the same tine style as the Caverly record, with beautiful 
engravings from the Vox copper-plate press. It is dedicated by the 
author, at Centralville, Mass., to the Reverend Clergy of New England, 
and to the Teacher or Advanced Student in the Sabbath School or Church." 
—From the Hon. John A. Goodwin, Editor Vox Populi f l880. 



